Distant Planet
by Andor01
Summary: Barely two days after the events of Pikmin 2, Captain Olimar has to return to the Distant Planet once again. While not motivated to the extreme just yet, he'll soon find the Distant Planet wasn't exactly the way he left it.
1. Arrival

**My story of Pikmin follows the original story after Pikmin 2. Olimar, Louie, and Shacho(yes, that's how it's spelled. It's the Japanese translation for "Company President") have returned home to Hocotate. That story follows.**

**Oh yeah, I do not own Pikmin or any of its related subjects. Copyright shtuff, all rights reserved by Nintendo.**

**Lastly, new Pikmin colors and species have been a big topic as always for anyone who's played before. Right now, I'm not sure if creating new ones would flow well with the game unless I plan it out ahead of time. I'll work on that if this story goes well. Now that I'm done wasting your time, you may read.**

* * *

Hocotate, home planet of Captain Olimar, his boss, Louie, and millions of others, got bigger and bigger as "The Ship" exited hyperspace and began the short trek home. Olimar sat in the pilot's seat, once again relieved to see his home planet.

Several weeks ago, Olimar had left Hocotate to fly off to a vacation spot. He crossed paths with a comet halfway through and found himself on an uncharted system. Only a desperate alliance with the wildlife of the planet, his beloved friends the Pikmin, saved him from dying in the deadly atmosphere.

The next time Olimar came back home, overjoyed and bursting with happiness to be alive, his beloved S.S. Dolphin was sold and he was told to return to that wretched planet to pay off a loan of 10,100 pokos, accompanied by Louie and a smart-alec ship.

Finally, the last time Olimar returned home, in the same ship and no Louie, his boss decided to go back and gather ALL the treasure. They even recovered Louie in the process, and leaving the planet ended with an emotional yet beautiful goodbye.

Olimar had been grinning ever since. He was content with their journey, the Pikmin made a spectacular exit in that chapter of his life, and now, after being denied time with his family twice, he'd get to spend all the time in the world. No doubt The President would be so happy with his huge amount of extra cash that he wouldn't need Olimar for at least a week or two, or five, or fourteen.

Touchdown! The Golden ship reached the Hocotate Freight's yard, and the Research Pod detached moments afterwards. Olimar and the President came tumbling out of the polished ship and took off their helmets. Captain Olimar took a deep breath, taking in the refreshing air of his home. He didn't even notice as the President ran over to where the Research Pod was dumping the huge load of extra treasure. Between two loads, a small blue object came down. It was Louie, the newest employee of Hocotate Freight and, while no one knew it, the reason the company had gone into debt.

No one was aware of that, and therefore Olimar felt a bit of guilt for what happened to the novice pilot. Louie got lost and somehow ended up on a massive creature named the Titan Dweevil. Whether this was by accident or some other story, all had ended well, minus the giant spider itself. Since then, Louie referred to himself as the King of Bugs, a title Olimar's imagination ran off with for quite some time.

But that was over with now. Whatever Louie and the President did, he didn't care. He told the President he was taking a break from work, and walked off. The President didn't argue. He probably barely heard him. But with all this money, who cared?

----

Louie walked off. He had a lot on his mind. Everyone knew that he was quiet, and whatever lurked though his mind was impossible to get out of him unless he wanted you to know. Sure, he had a full cookbook on new recipes for every beast he'd found on the Distant Planet, but what use was it if none of those things were here?

A barrage of ideas zipped through his head. Books, restaurants, importing beasts from there to here, every little idea came through, and every single one got shot down as he knew that none of them would work. It didn't matter. He'd find something to do. And when he did, there'd be no reason to come back.

----

A few days past. Olimar had spent all of that time enjoying his family's company. Judging by how much time he'd been away, there was no doubt they enjoyed his return just as much as he did. Olimar told them all about the Pikmin, his adventures, the creatures he encountered, what they were called(that one got a lot of laughs), and his family told him what he had missed in the past two and a half months.

Soon enough, Olimar's logs fell into the family's hands and they got to read Olimar's journals from his first arrival and the much more descriptive video logs of each beast out on the Distant Planet.

The family spent hours watching every creature on the planet from the recorded videos on "The Ship" and the Pilot helmet cameras. Every time a bulborb appeared out of nowhere, or a new enormous creature attacked and scared the crap about of them, Olimar would laugh. He'd already been there and jumped out of his skin. He found himself almost looking forward to the part where the Waterwraith, Segmented Crawbster, Gatling Groink, and each Creeping Chrysanthemum appeared out of nowhere.

He thoroughly enjoyed the group's laughter when they saw the first Bulborb, suddenly realizing why they were named after Bulbie. But most importantly of all, they all "awww!"ed and his wife practically cooed when they laid eyes on each Pikmin, one after the other.

The Red Pikmin was always first, and instantly, all three of Olimar's family members were entranced. Both perspectives, from Louie's cam and Olimar's, were displayed. Olimar skipped to the yellow Pikmin straight afterwards, wanting them to see the Pikmin in the same order he believed they should be introduced.

Blue Pikmin got a lot of praise, especially from Olimar's son. His wife and daughter loved them all, but both like red best. Next came the purple Pikmin, something the three of them were waiting for. Immediately, the family laughed. Olimar smiled. He already missed the little troops, every single one of them. Watching the purple Pikmin awaken and get used to its new form(since it was just a red Pikmin thrown into a Candypop Bud), brought back memories that felt like it had happened years ago.

White Pikmin were Olimar's daughter's favorite. They're beady red eyes fascinated his son, and their ability to see underground fascinated him more. The fact that they were poisonous put him in awe.

Lastly were the bulbmin. They were unexpected and thoroughly enjoyed. It was like seeing the mystical Pikmin combined with their dog. In short, beloved and adored.

Needless to say, there was no Pikmin the family didn't like. They wanted to watch the rest of the video and see every beast, but Olimar decided that they enjoy the Distant Planet, one day at a time. His wife agreed, and the kids thought it would make it more realistic. They turned the video off and went outside to spend some long overdue family time.

----

Late at night, Hocotate Freight was empty, dark, and dusty. Or so it seemed. The President had fallen asleep at his desk admiring his new financial support, and so one light was on.

The Golden Ship stood alone in the yard, waiting for a load to come someday. But the only load tonight was a passenger who was sneaking into the yard. Obviously, it was Louie. His suit was already on and his helmet camera was offline.

He climbed up into the cockpit of the Golden Ship and looked back one last time. He wanted to go back to the Pikmin Planet. He had a good reason, and now, he was going to leave the world he knew behind. Why? That was his new Dark Secret. Redirecting his attention, the engines started. The characteristically clanking sound of the ship roared loudly, startling the President as he fell out of his chair. Before he could get up and look out the window, there was nothing but a trail of smoke leading straight up. Louie quickly past the two rings floating around Hocotate, turning around one last time for a final glance.

He quietly said his goodbyes as Hocotate and the two planets nearby got smaller and smaller. The sun was to his back, and finally he requested the ship take him back to the Pikmin world. Without question, the ship activated the power necessary and sped off. In seconds, the Golden Ship was long gone.

Shacho ran outside and looked up, following the trail of smoke with his eyes. He looked around, suddenly remembering that his ship had just been stolen and his only methods of contact were mail and the cameras, which the culprit no doubt turned off already. It was ironic how every time the ship left, the security cameras went blind. One Louie's first mission with the Golden Pikpik Carrots, he forgot to turn on the cameras. This time, the culprit would have either shielded them, kept them off, or shattered them.

He stomped the ground angrily and shouted. His wife probably wouldn't care. He had to find someone who could find that ship, wherever it was going, and fast. Naturally, the famous Captain came to mind.

----

When the call ended, Olimar was in a situation he hated. His boss called bright and early, and demanded he follow a thief that stole the Golden Ship. The last thing Olimar wanted to do was leave his family now, but now that he had seen them and spent time with him, maybe he could find a way to keep some sort of contact.

Sprouting an idea, he linked his suit's camera to the screen in the house. That way his family could watch him work at any time. He also set in a comm. Link for them to talk as well. No one was happy to see him go, but the video and audio connection made it much easier.

The only reason the President was able to get Olimar to come was with a reward he couldn't resist. Shacho had already set in the order and the debt collectors had accepted the trade. Hocotate Freight would trade a good amount of their new money in exchange for an old payment that they needed back, a replacement. By the time Olimar arrived to the Freight's yard, the hovering claws were collecting the treasure and dropping off something they had taken a month and a half ago, the S.S. Dolphin.

Olimar's family had come to see him off. The President greeted them warmly and thanked them for their patience with Olimar's work. As Olimar hugged each of them goodbye, his son asked, "Where's Mr. Louie?"

Shacho had called Louie earlier, but the employee's grandmother responded, stating that Louie had come and gone. Shacho had somehow not made the connection, but even Olimar's daughter figured it out as soon as Louie came up.

Olimar's wife suddenly stated that Olimar not go. But the Captain believed that he might be the only one capable of stopping the cadet. Besides, now they knew where the novice was going. Olimar jumped eagerly into his beloved ship, and took one last long look at his wife and kids. He tapped his helmet, and the three of them nodded. They'd be watching him very, very often. The President waved goodbye. The kids jumped up and down and waved, cheering him on, while Olimar's wife held back tears and blew a kiss. The Captain could hardly bear to look any longer, and ignited the engines.

The Dolphin blasted off of Hocotate. Olimar was looking forward, or up, as he left his home a fourth time. As a final goodbye, he exited the atmosphere spiraling, a motion he learned early in his career and one his family enjoyed watching him perform. His kids laughed and his wife smiled, and none of them left the yard until they knew he was gone.

The Dolphin, much sleeker and more capable of holding together, instantly went to hyperspace. He counted the seconds, just like last time. He was just waiting to get back, grab Louie, and go back home.

----

Louie, on the other hand, had come out of hyperspace a bit too early. The planet was in sight, yes, but still a bit far. Still, resuming hyperspace wouldn't help at all. Little did he know that in the short time it took him to get close, he lost his head start. The S.S. Dolphin appeared ridiculously close to the golden ship's left and both pilots jumped in surprise.

Already, Olimar's family was watching. They saw exactly what he saw, and they could also watch from the Dolphin's cameras, and so they watched his ship pull away from the red ship, and, conveniently, another comet, only to let Louie speed up, entering the atmosphere. The Dolphin followed, half a second behind.

When they came side by side. Olimar looked to Louie on his right. He tapped his helmet, hoping Louie would understand that it meant he wanted to talk. Louie turned on his mic, and unknowingly, his suit's camera. Before either of them could mutter a word, Louie's ship drifted to the left, scratching the Dolphin's hull.

Olimar flew a few feet away, trying to get Louie to turn back. But he wouldn't. Instead, he swerved towards Olimar as if he were trying to ram into him. Olimar skillfully dodged this "attack" and watched Louie somehow already lose control of his ship. The S.S. Dolphin sped after it, thinking of someway to help. Instead, the golden ship crashed into the Dolphin fast and hard, the collision shaking both pilots off their seats. Louie fell back and the cockpit opened. Just like his last arrival, he fell out of his seat and went spiraling towards the planet. The Golden Ship sputtered as the ship's "conscience" took control, but Olimar had fallen out of his seat, and his ship was heading straight for the planet.

Needless to say, Olimar's kids and wife were screaming for him to wake up. Ten seconds before impact, he did. He jumped to his seat and pulled up, skimming a huge lake, and he pulled up, he felt a glimmer of hope, as did his family. But he found himself headed straight for a mountain. Even before the impact, he knew that pulling up wouldn't stop the crash. But he pulled up anyway. As a result, the tip of the mountain still hit him. At that moment, he got a glimpse of where he was. There was nothing nearby but rock and dirt. At first he wondered if he was at the Forest Navel, but he then noticed that the placed was littered with huge crevices and canyons. He went spiraling into one of the bigger ones. He did what he could to minimize the damage to the ship before ejecting with the Space Float mere seconds before the impact. The float may not have kept him in the air, but it made his fall much less painful. At most, he had a few bruises.

He got up and took the huge Space Float off, and ran straight for his ship. There was a large crater where it had hit, and the Dolphin was unable to fly at the moment, but in was intact, much to Olimar's relief. The Repair-Type Bolt would automatically start repairing all the damage, and soon it would be up and running again. Olimar finally stopped to listen to his family's calls. He responded. He was okay. He looked around, knowing they were viewing the same thing he was.

He was in a huge canyon. It was much like the Forest Navel, but deeper into the earth itself. Distantly, he could hear the distinct sound of the fire hazards he'd seen on this planet. It was midday, but it was dark anyway. He took a few steps forward and heard a faint flow of water. He could hear a number of things, but none of them sounded distinctively friendly or dangerous. A little more relaxed, he decided to stay by his ship until it could work again. With the Repair-Type Bolt, that would be quite soon.

----

The Golden Ship faired better than the Dolphin in a landing, but was without a pilot, and worse, was in a canyon far away from any maps that either of the other two adventures had recorded. The steep canyon seemed new, as if it has recently been torn apart. Intelligence suggested an earthquake must have torn the land apart. A quick scan revealed nothing. Trails of ions in the sky showed the path Captain Olimar's vessel took. The absence of radio communications led to assume that the S.S. Dolphin was damaged. Lastly, the search for an active pilot was activated. Signs showed that Captain Olimar was positioned close to a chunk of metal, most likely the Dolphin. There were faint signs of another pilot, several miles away. Where this second pilot, undoubtedly Louie, stood, there was a massive count of other life forms. Louie was most likely in the presence of a Pikmin horde, or a flurry of other native beasts.

Louie ran for his life, something he found he did quite often on his planet. Behind him was a boulder, a huge boulder that was shot from a huge black beetle. He'd not encountered this kind of creature last time he was here, only the larva forms. But he had the basic idea. This was an Armored Cannon Beetle, and it was angry.

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**Cliffhangers in Pikmin can't be very exciting, because there's only three characters that have even been around the Distant Planet, but I'll do my best for later chapters. Maybe I can do something unexpected... I considered bringing Olimar's family into the mix, but maybe that's just not what a Pikmin story needs. What do you think? Olimar's family joins the fray? Or someone else?? Your choice. Anyway, more will come, I'm not one to leave a story half-finished. But I hope you enjoyed it. Review if you liked it, loved it, gotta have it, or just hated it. I'd like opinions to improve from. Thanks for reading! **


	2. Native Greeting

**Once again, I don't own Pikmin or anything related to it. All right reserved to Nintendo, Copyright shtuff included.**

**Like I asked before, I'm curious to what you guys think. For now, I'm not adding anyone from Olimar's family to the Distant Planet, but if you guys think it would be an okay addition, please say so! Anyway, R&R!**

* * *

The last time Olimar left the Distant Planet, he noticed that the terrain he was in had changed slightly since his crash-landing here. Since his last departure, however, things got a little worse than last time.

The Distant Planet as Olimar knew it suffered from extensive damage of earthquakes and other natural disasters. During that point, the three Onions, still grouped together, found themselves in a situation their strange "souls" could not comprehend. Before most of the Pikmin could understand what was happening, the ground cracked and separated the Pikmin from each other and their Onions.

The Blue Onion in particular did not have time to rise and fell down into a huge crevice. Still filled with many Pikmin, while others near it were either hanging onto the legs or falling freely, tumbled helplessly towards the bottom of the new canyon, where a huge underwater river had been flowing for years. Where that Onion traveled, it is unknown.

Meanwhile, both the red and yellow Onions began to lift off. The Yellow Onion had managed to gather at least fifty yellow Pikmin, but no more than that. Meanwhile, the red Onion was still gathering, but it had to lift off, red Pikmin still holding on to it.

Earthquakes sometimes have a chain reaction. With dust and rock still flying, the dormant volcano very close to the Forest Navel erupted. That volcano spat lava everywhere, one medium-sized blast partially scorching the Red Onion, which lost control of itself and went tumbling down towards the earth. The Yellow Onion hovered in the atmosphere alone, searching for some form of guidance. But nothing was there.

Normally Purple and White Pikmin would not survive the night's predators, but Pikmin were not the only creatures disturbed and harmed by the destruction. Every monster on the Distant Planet had been affected. Including those in the caves

Some of the caves had collapsed on themselves, but not every beast in those holes was killed. Some of them were deep enough to find the canyons being their way out towards the surface. Now, some of them climbed out of the darkness below, finding a whole new world ahead of them.

----

Olimar could tell that the sun was going to set in about two hours. The Dolphin had been under maintenance for about four hours and was halfway done. He had no chance of getting into the air before the night arrived, and he knew that with it, the monsters of the planet would come.

But at the moment, all he could do was try to help and keep his watching family sane. All three of them were worried out of their minds, and he had to admit, he was too. The President was most likely trying to establish communications with Louie or The Ship. But in the meantime, Olimar felt he had to look around.

He made a mental note to where his ship was and began to walk. He began to climb up the cliff, which by now had several ledges in it that made it almost a giant flight of stairs.

He reached the top of the canyon to see that the crevice he'd landed in was over two hundred feet wide and stretched for miles, beyond Olimar's sight, especially at this time of day.

He looked around. If he didn't know any better, he'd say this place looked familiar. It reminded him of the Forest Navel. It almost looked like the large lake of water he'd found in the original Forest Navel. Not far from him where those same strange crystal-like objects that had been in the water.

But aside from familiar surroundings, everything looked so… dead. Had an earthquake just struck a few minutes before he'd arrived? Truthfully, it had been a few days, but all the same, it looked so abandoned.

That might have been good news. If the world he landed in was hurt, that meant the wildlife here was just as shocked as he was, probably more. They wouldn't be prowling around this place for food, unless they were desperate. But that didn't matter. He began to look upwards, hoping for some sort of sign of hope.

All he saw was the very faint trail of smoke that had emitted from The Ship and the Dolphin. He could see the starry sky, as usual, and saw a mountain range only a few miles away. He looked closer to see one of the mountains was a volcano. The huge pillar of smoke told him it was active, and had probably been for some time.

----

On the other side of the canyon, hidden just behind a small hill, barely out of sight, was the red Onion, covered in soot, rock, dust, and ash. Two Pikmin had managed to hang onto the Onion during the entire trip AND survived the crash. One of them was new to the species, but the other red Pikmin had been around since Olimar's first day on the Distant Planet, no, he wasn't the very first Pikmin Olimar plucked, but he was plucked on the same day, which was good enough to assume that the Pikmin had seen it all. Burrowing Snagret, Emperor Bulblax, Raging Bloyster, Segmented Crawbster, Titan Dweevil, everything.

But that had all happened.. when Captain Olimar was here. Now, he was gone, and the Pikmin were leaderless. This sole red Pikmin had always known to look to Olimar for guidance. But now that he had left, what was there to do? The Onion was damaged and the Pikmin were scattered to who knows where…

In short, the Pikmin had no idea what to do, and no one to follow. It was lost…

----

Louie woke up, very confused. He was also very, very far from where Olimar or The Ship was. He suddenly remembered how much he hated this planet. The Cannon Beetle had chased him at least a mile away from where he had landed, and they found themselves very close to the Valley of Repose, where Louie had the memory of his first crash-landing. This time, it had been just as bad. The ice they raced on had cracked and both fell into the ice-cold water. The Cannon Beetle drowned instantly, but Louie's suit kept enough of the cold out until a Bumbling Snitchbug grabbed him out of the water and threw him to the ground after what felt like hours. Seeing as he was no longer in the Valley of Repose, it probably was.

Slightly less confident about his hopes and dreams, he ran up to the top of a nearby mountain to get a look at where he was.

He reached the top, which was instead the cliff, leading straight down into a huge canyon. Louie took a step back before looking around. He was in the middle of a vast jungle, a swamp overflowing with water. He vaguely remembered this place as the Perplexing Pool, or Olimar's original name, the Distant Spring.

While he remembered some distinct landmarks and places, he noticed that many of the trees, natural walls, and other obstacles were knocked out of place. Trees lay everywhere, natural walls were now just dirt, and half the stuff he recognized the Perplexing Pool for was gone. Not to mention there were several large crevices in the ground now.

There was still a decently overflowing amount of water where the crevices were not. There was plenty of water flowing straight into some of the new canyons, but the water didn't seem to be running low. Louie subconsciously wondered where all that water came from before hearing something loud.

He turned around. Through the fog, slowly rolling in, something tore straight through a downed tree's trunk. Louie saw bark flying, but all he was worried about now was what tore through that trunk. He looked to where the noise was coming from. He could barely make out two glowing blue eyes.

He couldn't run backwards or he'd fall into the cliff. He had to stay still and hope that the beast wouldn't notice him. It did.

The beast stared Louie in the eye, even if it was from a quarter of a mile away. But the stomping sounds proved it was coming closer, and fast. Louie trembled, but otherwise frozen with fear. Finally, the mist cleared and the Smokey Progg made its dramatic appearance. Louie's eyes widened even more as the creature looked straight at him and took another step forward. Louie finally was able to move, but all he did was take a step back. He realized his heel was on the very edge of the cliff, but the Smokey Progg didn't seem to care. It took two more steps.

Finally, something else moved, and both Louie and the Smokey Progg heard the sharp crack of stone. Both paused and took a brief look around. Neither could see the huge crack beneath them as the ledge they stood on was starting to give away.

The Smokey Progg forgot all about it as it redirected its attention to Louie. The pilot was unable to think, and finally that last crack sounded off and the entire ledge tore off the earth. The stone ledge, Louie, and the Smokey Progg all began their descent into the canyon. There was indeed water at the bottom, but that wasn't a guarantee of survival.

----

The Ship had reestablished communications with the President, who was now more than eager to return to the Distant Planet and find his two employees. His business and success in life depended on it. After short preparations and heavy disagreements from the Ship, the golden model took off, leaving behind a trail of smoke that Louie would have seen had he not been tumbling down a cliff with a Smokey Progg.

The Yellow Onion, still floating around, searching for some guidance, did spot the ship, and chased after it, but was let down when the ship continued to fly out of orbit and far away from the planet, a place the only could not follow.

----

Olimar saw the trail in the corner of his eye and turned to watch the golden dot fly away. He cursed. He instantly assumed that Louie was flying back home. But his family told him differently. Shacho was coming, they said. Olimar wasn't sure whether to rejoice or just kill himself there.

----

The Red Onion had released fifteen Pikmin to try and dig the Onion out of the ground. The other two Pikmin, one of which the veteran, (I'll just point him out by calling him RED), had spotted the smoke trail. All the Pikmin stopped as they recognized the trail and were let down to see it fly away. But then RED noticed that Olimar was on the other side of the canyon.

All seventeen Pikmin began cheering and jumping up and down. Their cries echoed over the canyon to Olimar. He turned around to see some red objects lined up on the other edge of the canyon, jumping repeatedly. His eyes widened, and he heard his family gasp in the microphone as they all realized those were Pikmin. The Captain grinned and ran back to the canyon. He made his way down to the bottom and then scaled the other side.

He reached the other side and almost hugged the red creatures. He heard his entire family "aww!" as they finally saw living Pikmin, even if it was on a screen.

He finally stopped to take a look at the Red Onion, which was being buried out slowly but surely. Olimar had never seen an Onion in danger, and he had no idea how fragile it was. He began to help the Pikmin out.

It took several more minutes, but finally the Onion was able to turn its propeller-flower and rise off the ground. It extended its legs and returned to the surface, turning on the red light underneath it last.

Olimar's family finally understood exactly what all the descriptions they'd read and heard from him meant. They watched as Olimar entered the light and telepathically called from all the red Pikmin in the Onion. Including the seventeen already with him, there were sixty four that had survived. Olimar was simply glad he didn't have to start out with five all over again.

The desolate canyon Olimar had confirmed was a ravaged Forest Navel had been engulfed in darkness now. The Onion did not leave the earth, as nothing seemed to be endangering it. Plus, it had no leader to follow.

Olimar was right, the wildlife had been just as shocked by the earthquakes that must have made all the crevices and canyons in the earth. They had probably taken shelter and were more terrified than the Captain was.

But for now, they'd have to wait until the Dolphin was finished repairing itself. Then they could probably find the rest of the Onions and Louie. Slowly, time passed and Olimar spent his first night on the Distant Planet accompanied by RED and sixty-three other red Pikmin.

----

Louie resurfaced, something he did not expect to do. He looked around. The canyon was moving fast around him, and it took him a moment to realize that the current that had taken him was flowing at tremendous speeds.

He fought against the current long enough to reach the rocky wall and grab onto it. It took several tries before he got a good grip and managed to pull himself up and out of the water. He scaled the wall slowly, dripping wet and almost slipped off several times.

Finally, he reached a bit of the wall that jutted out just enough to be a ledge. He pulled himself up and took a deep breath, and closed his eyes as he tried to relax.

That relaxation was quickly cut off as he began to hear a slithering sound from above him. He looked up reluctantly, and found a group of Sheargrubs appearing from the canyon wall, most of them desperate for food. A male Sheargrub spotted him and dropped down to the small ledge Louie occupied. The others followed. Altogether, there were about five males and three females. Louie backed up until his back was against the wall. The Sheargrubs showed no signs of mercy, and the first one attacked.

Louie ducked and jumped to the left, and two more jumped after him. The first one missed, but the second one got his arm. He shook it off painfully, running back to his position and stepped on one of the females. It retreated back into the canyon wall.

The fourth male came from behind him, but Louie somehow found the courage to face it as it leaped to take a bite. He caught both the upper and lower jaws in his hands and tossed it off the ledge. He barely heard its shriek over the sound of the rushing water, but he'd learned before that Sheargrubs couldn't survive without air.

The fifth and final Sheargrub was a little more cautious, but its hunger was much more powerful. It got close and tried to bite at Louie's legs. Escaping with only a scratch, Louie jumped over it and kicked it off the edge.

He grabbed a female Sheargrub and threw it against another male. Both tumbled off the ledge into the water.

With one female left and two males remaining, Louie felt a little better. He heard a faint buzzing noise above him, but didn't pay attention to it. He faced the first Sheargrub attacking and kicked it in the mouth as it leaped after him. It shrieked and retreated. The two that remained got wise and went back to their original home in the wall, leaving Louie alone on the ledge with a little more than a bruise.

The buzzing noise became so normal to Louie for those two seconds afterwards that he forgot to look up as the Bumbling Snitchbug reached down and picked Louie up, flying over the water, dangling him several yards above the surface. The novice pilot struggled free, not thinking about what would happen next. But the Snitchbug threw him down into the water. Louie plummeted past a group of Wogpoles and another larger creature until he reached the bottom.

The water slowed him down, but he got up, finding himself several yards below the surface. He heard all sorts of sounds, most of them coming from the wildlife caught in the current. He turned to make sure nothing was coming towards him, but found himself jumping from an incoming Water Dumple. Another group of Wogpoles past him as he jumped and began to flow with them. But something behind him was much larger that Sheargrub and it could see him as a meal.

The large shark was about the same size as a Toady Bloyster, but much hungrier. It opened its jaws and lunged for the stray pilot, who panicked and somehow found himself holding onto its dorsal fin.

The shark felt the intruder on its fin and began to take harder turns while still flowing with the current. Louie hung on with desperation, until he felt the shark jump out of the water, wriggling to get Louie off. The plunged back into the water, and the pilot felt his hand slip. The shark jumped a second time, and the impact of the water as they came back down freed the shark and it continued to swim. Louie landed in the water and struggled to stay awake.

The current carried the subconscious pilot to a lake where all the wildlife had been swept. Amazingly, nothing tried to eat him. Louie washed up on the shore, out cold and dreaming.

----

As the night grew darker, and midnight drew closer, Olimar and fifty Pikmin had walked all the way to his fallen Dolphin. It was less than half an hour from complete repair, but anything could happen in half an hour, and Olimar knew it.

One of those things drew closer and it's strangely orange eyes scanned for food. It was not normal for a creature to wander for food at this sort of place, especially after all the terrain's destruction, but this creature had spent most of its life underground and now wanted a taste of the outside world.

The Dolphin's radars spotted the creature first, and immediately warned Olimar with an alarm that only he could hear. His family then heard it, and began to fear for their father, or husband's, life. Olimar jumped onto his beloved ship to get a better look at whatever was approaching from the south side of the canyon at this hour.

As it appeared out of the mist and came into the faint moonlight, Olimar's eyes widened and he jumped down, gathering all the Pikmin. At the same time, the Orange Bulborb south of them could smell food nearby, and now walked straight for the metal hunk with smoke coming out of it.

Olimar waited until he could feel and hear the creature's footsteps before running around the ship and throwing every Pikmin he could. The Orange Bulborb yelped in surprise, having not expected a fight. The red Pikmin were on its face, whacking like crazy and otherwise bringing a pain unlike any other. Furious, it shook its entire body, throwing the Pikmin off.

It turned to the largest group of Pikmin, still under Olimar's command. It lunged forward and took a bite, only to miss and fall to the ground. As it growled and got back up, Olimar commanded the Pikmin to swarm. They did so eagerly and severely hurt the monster. But it wasn't done yet.

The monster lunged down and took two Pikmin into its mouth, chewing quickly and swallowing them. Olimar heard the sound of them screaming before their deaths and jumped onto the creature, hoping that his punches would do something to help.

The beast took another bite, this time grabbing four red Pikmin. But as it began to chew, the remaining soldiers finished the bulborb off. It collapsed, and any Pikmin on it, Olimar included, were thrown off. RED and several other Pikmin instantly began to carry the bulborb, even though they had no idea how to get back to the onion. Olimar called them back and watched the four red Pikmin that were almost devoured crawl out of the dead creature's mouth. He would have spat on the creature if his helmet didn't block him. He felt ashamed to have already lost two Pikmin. While he knew the Pikmin didn't do too well on their own, thoughts lingered in his head, making him wonder if him leading the Pikmin was really a good idea.

He had no more time to think as he heard what sounded like another bulborb's footsteps approach behind him. But as he turned around, he subconsciously told himself it wasn't. The footsteps he was hearing were too fast for a bulborb. No, this creature sounded like it had four legs, not two.

He didn't see anything, but the Pikmin looked at the dead bulborb and their eyes widened. Olimar looked to see that they were actually looking at what was perched on top of the carcass. It was small, about the same size as a water dumple, but it had four legs, just like Olimar predicted. It looked like some sort of tiger, and its teeth actually shined, something Olimar heard his family gasp at.

He backed away, suddenly noticing the monster's features and feeling very afraid. The Pikmin now backed away with him. The monster had the basic form of a sabertooth tiger, but had small but distinct spikes on its back, lined up with its spine. The small spikes were arched in the same direction, backwards. Aside from this spinal feature, the whole body was covered with fur.

It pounced, screeching much like a tiger does, and landed in the midst of the Pikmin. They all attacked, and Olimar wasn't sure whether to help or back away in terror, but he could hardly move at all, despite his family's shrieking.

The tiger slashed its claw, trying to scratch a Pikmin, but the worst it did was knock them over. The tiger laid eyes on Olimar, and saw a defenseless meal frozen in fear. It wasn't exactly wrong, either. It shook the Pikmin off and jumped towards Olimar, landing on him and keeping him down with its two front paws. It showed its teeth, savoring the fear Olimar reeked with. Drool dripped on Olimar's helmet, and he wouldn't have been surprised if it melted through the glass. It didn't.

The Pikmin jumped onto the beast's back, but it paid no attention. They were hardly hurting it at all. It extended its jaws to bite at Olimar's neck, and finally he found the strength to move, placing his hands on both jaws, pushing those teeth away from him. The tiger pressed harder, and their battle for life ended suddenly when all fifty beings there heard a high-pitched beep echo throughout the canyon. All eyes lay on the source of that noise, the Dolphin. A pink satellite detached itself from the ship and floated in midair a few feet from the ground. Some of the Pikmin vaguely remembered carrying the object, and Olimar found a huge grin on his face. Back home, his wife and kids were on their toes, and finally registered what that thing was. His son cheered, his daughter found an excited grin on her face, and the wife kept her hands over her mouth.

The Guard Satellite located the single threat nearby. This machine had been lost on Olimar's first arrival here. It was a machine built to protect him and his ship from threats like Space Pirates. While Olimar didn't rely on it so much ever since it somehow missed the comet that struck the Dolphin, he was very happy to see it had just started working.

While there was no barrel, bullets launched out of the satellite just like with the Man-at-Legs. Five bullets fired, all five of them landing on the salivating tiger's side. The beast was flung back, landed hard on the rocky ground, and did not get back up. The satellite scanned for more enemies, and detected only Pikmin and its pilot. Pikmin had been around before, and logs showed that Olimar presented them as allies, not enemies. Therefore, there were no more potential threats within a five mile radius. The satellite returned to its resting point on the Dolphin's hull.

Olimar wiped the saliva off his helmet and couldn't help jump for joy! He suddenly found a new love for the Guard Satellite! He could hear his kids cheering and his wife sighing in relief, and suddenly regretted ever coming here.

But he had discovered this planet himself, if not in the best way ever, and anyone who landed on it, trouble or no trouble, he felt somewhat responsible for helping out. And since Louie was now alone here with no ship, he felt obligated to go find him.

He checked the Dolphin's progress. It would be ready in a few minutes. He figured that he might as well bring the Pikmin back to their Onion, so by the time he gets back, the Dolphin will be ready for takeoff. He made sure all forty-eight Pikmin were with him and began marching north.

When he returned to his beloved ship, he got in and enjoyed the familiar cockpit he loved so much. The filters were still getting all the oxygen out of the ship, but soon he'll be able to restore his life-support and be able to survive on the planet as long as necessary. He just needed one more day.

Anyway, the Dolphin made its characteristic takeoff as the roar echoed across the entire canyon. A group of Sheargrubs looking for food buried themselves in the dirt instantly after hearing it.

The Dolphin lifted off the planet, and Olimar could slightly make out the red Onion taking off and flying up to join him. He then closed his eyes, bid his family good night, and fell asleep, right there. His kids didn't want to leave, but their mother assured them their father would be safe, and that she'd wake them up tomorrow as soon as he would land on the planet again.

----

The Yellow Onion still hovered in the air, as it did all night, every night, but this time it had no destination. But there was something else that, much like the tiger, was taking advantage of the chaos that had just unleashed on the world and was hunting. However, this beast was a flying creature, and therefore had very little to do with the changing landscape. Unless the life down there disappeared, it didn't care.

The bird had a grey and white coloring, and mostly resembled a Griffon Vulture. Its wingspan reached the same height of Beady Long Legs. Its hunger, much like that of every other creature on this planet, was insatiable.

The yellow Onion was close enough to the surface to be this bird's prey. Without warning, the Pikmin inside that Onion felt an abrupt jolt. The bird had scratched the Onion with its claws, but not gotten a firm grasp on it. The Onion began to fly in the other direction, flying lower to the ground. The bird quickly came back around and snatched it.

As the bird began to carry it back, the Onion's flower was still turning, and pretty soon, it began to cut into the bird's claws. The bird screeched and dropped the yellow object. The Onion wasn't able to control itself and began to lose way too much altitude as it tried to fly back up again. The bird, still hungry, dove after it.

The Onion barely pulled up in time before hitting the rocky surface of a canyon. It began to fly through the trench, and the bird was flapping furiously right behind it. The confined space in the canyon kept the bird from spreading its wings, and some enough it began to have trouble keeping up and not hurting its wings on the rocky walls.

When it finally decided to fly out of the canyon, it was too late. A Pileated Snagret jumped out of the ground and grabbed the bird's left leg. The sudden extra weight shocked the giant vulture and it dropped to the ground. As both got back on their feet, or foot, several Burrowing Snagrets came out of the ground all around the bird. Some came out instantly, others had troubling getting out of the ground. (Needless to say, this was very close to the Snagret Hole, and that leads to the fact that they are in the Awakening Wood/Forest of Hope) But there was no hope for this vulture. Its distant cousins were already grabbing it and keeping it from leaving, and soon enough it would get a little deeper and the bird would die, and the meat would be the only thing the Snagrets are worried about. So the yellow Onion was no longer as important and was allowed to leave the canyon and return to the crispy air at least a mile above the surface.

----

Several miles away, following the large river that now flowed from the Distant Spring, down and through a large canyon, and into a lake, there was uncharted territory, a dead land filled with burnt trees and other signs of recently abandoned life. The ash was still coating the ground and that river was clearly going to be the first sign of life. But what lay next to the lake was what would be of attention.

Louie had awakened and began to wander the lake shore. There was no crashed ship(or Arwing), so he entered the scorched forest. There was no sign of green anywhere, but he kept looking. He'd managed very well last time with the Titan Dweevil, he could do it again here. But what he found wasn't what he expected, nor was it what he was exactly prepared to work with, but after a moment of consideration, he found himself smiling. He had never seen one, but he read in Olimar's logs what an Onion looked like when it had not yet been activated, and this looked just like one. The Onion was half buried in the soil, had a dark brown coloring, and had no flower on it. Louie could hardly contain his joy and he approached it, hoping it would respond to his calling. Two steps away, and it did, and it turned a color Louie had never seen Pikmin of. He could hardly wait to see what sort of abilities Green Pikmin had.

* * *

**I figured adding a new Pikmin would be nice right about now, and I've been pondering a little about what the Green Pikmin should be able to do. By the way, more pikmin may come, but since Green has been a color we've been looking for ever since Pikmin 1 was beaten and we saw more Onions at the Happy End, I figured they should be first. Sorry this took so long to arrive, by the way. I don't know WHAT happened to slow my progress so much. Anyway, please let me what you think about newcomers on the planet, besides Shacho. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, by the way! Next one should be up before too long.**


	3. Shuttle 815

**Once again, I don't own Pikmin or anything related to it. All right reserved to Nintendo, Copyright shtuff included.**

**Like I asked before, I'm curious to what you guys think. For now, I'm not adding anyone from Olimar's family to the Distant Planet, but if you guys think it would be an okay addition, please say so! Anyway, R&R!**

* * *

Dawn was still a few hours away. The Dolphin and the red Onion hovered in the air several miles above the surface, the Pikmin and Olimar all asleep.

The yellow Onion was now aware of its location, the Forest of Hope, and now chose to settle down in the ring where the Ultra-Spicy Berries grew, the same landing site that had first been chosen on the Yellow Pikmin's first days awake.

Still no word from Shacho or The Ship, but the other pilot on the Distant Planet had other things in mind. Louie had found a dormant Onion and had just activated it. The Onion sprouted a flower and popped out of the dirt, spreading its three legs, and spat out a green seed. Louie could hardly wait as he watched the seed grow into a Pikmin stem.

It finally did, the leaf waving back and forth even in the absence of wind. The leaf was the same color as every Pikmin, and this green stem was just a little more of a brighter color green, but green all the same. Louie grabbed it with both hands and pulled. The Pikmin came flying out, landed on its feet, and stared at him.

Louie turned around slowly to examine the new species. The green Pikmin was the same size as the original three red, yellow and blue species, but didn't have the same eye structure as them. Its eyes were much more like the white Pikmin, but instead of being bright red, they were blue, but the same size as the other Pikmin's eyes.

Small blue eyes and different color? That's not what Louie was hoping for. He was hoping for something more like… two stems on its head, a spiky tail, wings, claws, anything but just blue eyes. But then again, since when were Pikmin intimidating? Well the bulbmin were a bit more hungrier, but that was it.

He sighed, but got to work. He looked for some of those weird Pellet Posies and commanded the Pikmin to attack. The process of tearing down and harvesting all of the pellet posies took about four minutes and presented Louie with a squad of fifteen green soldiers. They walked a little further from the Onion, searching for some sort of enemy to harvest.

Within seconds, a Swooping Snitchbug flew by. Louie knew that they snatched Pikmin and threw them into the ground for no reason, but somehow, this Snitchbug didn't even seem to notice them. Louie took no time to ponder. He threw every single Pikmin on it and it fell to the ground. It barely managed to struggle to get back in the air before it died. Six of the Pikmin picked it up and carried it back, while the other nine returned to his command. He was starting to feel very happy with crash-landing here. He was already starting to feel the power of the Pikmin behind him. He felt good.

----

The Dolphin and the red Onion touched down on the ground of the Impact Site, or as it was recently renamed, the Wistful Wild. The place had always looked like Autumn and was overrun with harsh beasts that fought to survive every day, but now, the place was a little less than empty. Olimar wasn't surprised. He got out of the Dolphin and called out all the red Pikmin, leaving him with 62 in total.

The silence of the Wistful Wild was what scared the Captain the most. In his helmet, he could hear his kids waking up and rushing to see what their father was doing on his second day back, and his wife was making breakfast hurriedly so she could join them, but outside of that, the Distant Planet made him feel like he and the Pikmin were the only creatures moving.

That quickly changed as a boulder rushed by the group and nearly squashed half the Pikmin. They were no casualties, but Olimar wasn't going to have any. He turned to face the Armored Cannon Beetle, standing four yards from him.

He had not seen any Mature Cannon Beetles on his last adventure here, so seeing it was a sort of bittersweet thought. But he had no time for studies. He charged forward, something his family members were screaming for him not to do. As the Cannon Beetle inhaled for another boulder. Olimar threw Pikmin into its upper snout. The Pikmin clogged the nostril, and the beetle's wings opened up, revealing its soft backside. Olimar tossed Pikmin furiously, hearing his family cheer him on.

The Cannon Beetle survived that first attack, but not the second. Olimar was proud, but mostly just because he didn't lose any Pikmin in the process, and his family got to see it! He was content, and finally, the red Pikmin were able to carry their prize back home to their Onion and continue their species. Olimar's count said that the Cannon Beetle produced 50 Pikmin. That made a grand total of 112, more than enough to have 100 out in the field, which was all the Onion was going to allow.

He called for a hundred Pikmin in total, but only got 85. He was disappointed at first, but then remembered that this meant there were other Pikmin somewhere in the Wistful Wild. He looked forward to finding an Onion, or maybe the purple or white Pikmin, if they had survived the destruction.

Still, he was worried about this place. It was harsh. The last time he was here, there was a Decorated Cannon Beetle, a Gatling Groink, Orange Bulborbs, and plenty of other creatures that weren't easily gotten rid of.

But nonetheless, if there were stray Pikmin out here, he'd find them. He had every time, and he'd do it again!

----

Louie's group of 27 green Pikmin had helped him learn nothing of their special nature, but it did make him feel a little safer on this planet. It also helped him learn that maybe he was capable of taking care of an army of Pikmin, a skill he doubted he had in his last adventure.

He did grow tired of waiting for the green Pikmin to catch up, though. While they were too slow, they weren't able to keep up with him all the time, a factor he started to hate. But none of that mattered when he found a sleeping Red Bulborb sleeping in the forest. He was surprised to see wildlife already settling here, but then again, that didn't matter to him.

The Red Bulborb and the three Dwarf Red Bulborbs, which had already been cataloged to just be Breadbugs hiding in mimicry, had been here just two days after the forest had burned. The land was originally covered with lush plants and everything was green, but some massive flame, most likely that volcano that also struck the red Onion, was nearby and burned this place down. This family was lucky to survive, and instantly moved back in as soon as the fumes were gone.

But that would turn out to be a mistake. Louie swarmed the three small bulborbs first, each one seemingly having no idea what was happening. When he finally gathered his courage, Louie threw Pikmin onto the Red Bulborb's back. The bulborb panicked, stood up, and shook all the green Pikmin off. To Louie's surprise, the bulborb didn't even look at the Pikmin and started running after him! He ran towards its feet and behind it. The Pikmin had gotten back up and were swarming. The monster didn't even pay attention to them. It was still interested in Louie, and Louie only.

But it took two steps and died. The Pikmin had finished it off. Louie breathed a sigh of relief. He instructed nine Pikmin to carry the small bulborbs and the rest to carry the larger one. Still, he never remembered a bulborb waking up to attack the pilot. He'd always seen every creature on this planet attack the Pikmin. Why were these so different? Now that he thought about it, the Swooping Snitchbug they attacked didn't go for the Pikmin either… He figured he'd learn about it soon enough. But for now, he had new sprouts on the way.

----

The yellow Onion had released eleven Pikmin once the day had started, all of them searching for targets to eliminate. Ravenous Whiskarpillars had shown up a few times, but nothing had been great enough to require a lot of work. That was probably good, as eleven Pikmin were no match for anything stronger than a Cloaking Burrow-Nit. Their odds against even a dwarf bulborb was slim, as long as they were without a guide.

Regardless, what was about to happen had absolutely nothing to do with them, or anyone else on the planet.

Olimar and the red Pikmin wandering across the Wistful Wild suddenly felt the earth shake. The tiny pebbles on the ground were vibrating and almost bouncing off the ground. The two Orange bulborbs sleeping nearby had woken up, and were searching for the source. Two Puffy Blowhogs floated on, taking almost no notice of what was going on.

Louie and his troops felt it too. They were seconds away from swarming a Wollywog when the shaking started. The Wollywog panicked and hopped towards a cave, and the Pikmin considered running with it, but Louie said otherwise. They ran back to the green onion.

Almost every creature that could feel the shaking believed it was another earthquake about to tear the world apart yet again. But some of them, the ones more attuned with the earth itself, like the tiger species Olimar had encountered, knew that it was no earthquake.

All looked up to hear what sounded like a roar. What they saw, none of them would forget, especially the two captains.

----

What appeared to be a large cruiser, a ship much larger than the S.S. Dolphin or The Ship, was in the sky. It was over ten times the size of an Emperor Bulblax, easily, and both captains recognized the cruiser as a transport, a common ship used to ferry large shipments that Hocotate Freight couldn't take charge of, or large groups of passengers.

The large shuttles of this model were bulky, looked like basic rockets but had more stable parts to it, less fragile and more built for strength than speed. Regardless, the ship was not supposed to be here.

Olimar, Louie, their separate Pikmin groups, and all the wildlife that could see it watched as the flames around the ship seemed to grow, until parts of the ship seemed to be falling apart. Louie had only seen stuff like this in videogames, and Olimar thought it looked like when a meteor hit the atmosphere of a planet and began to shatter. That was exactly what it looked like.

The flames seemed to be tearing it apart, and it was going at a speed that its own weight disagreed against. The engines were still going, and the velocity was ripping the shuttle's features off one by one. Olimar wondered if this was what his ship looked like to the planet when he was crashing here.

The metallic roar of the cruiser echoed across every canyon, every cave, everywhere. Olimar's family watched in awe and horror as they saw the same thing from their screen. No one said a word.

One of those giant vultures had made the mistake of not flying fast enough and was hit by the shuttle. Way up in there, it looked like escape pods were being launched. One of them had launched separately from the others, and this one gleamed in gold. It wasn't even a pod, it was The Ship. In it was Shacho, who was ready to have a heart attack. The Ship was controlling itself this time, and was still unable to control exactly where it was going, straight down.

The golden ship plunged straight down, the engine sputtering and trying desperately to regain control of its flight path. At the last possible second, as was to be expected, the engines restarted and the ship made a hard turn to straighten itself. While it managed to avoid crashing straight into the ground, it was able to maneuver over the grassy hill in front of it. It scraped the tip and lost control yet again, this time plunging into a small lake of water, exactly where the Blue Pikmin and their Onion had relocated to after Olimar left the first time. But they were not here now. Now, there was just water.

The Ship remained largely intact, and Shacho was ejected from the seat as a warm welcome to the planet. Now he had finally experienced his harsh landing.

----

Meanwhile, the other two pilots on the planet hadn't even seen the golden ship escape the cruiser. They were too busy watching as the cruiser itself crumbled and exploded. Large chunks of it survived the flames and scattered across the landscape, just like the escape pods, until nothing was in the sky but a few scraps of metal and a whole lot of smoke.

The utter silence that followed in the Wistful Wild with Olimar and his Pikmin was unnatural. Not even a cricket was chirping in the background. Nothing made a sound. They were awestruck, to say the least. The Pikmin looked at one another, still trying to find out what had just happened. Olimar quickly came to his senses and asked his family if they could find anything out via news, or mail, or something. His son ran off and got to work.

----

Louie stood in the burnt forest with his new species of Pikmin, also awestruck. But the silence there was interrupted when one smaller chunk of the cruiser landed less than a mile away from them. The impact shook the ground and knocked Louie and most of the Pikmin off their feet.

Louie got up, as did the Pikmin. Louie was unsure what to do. He wanted to find out what had crashed, but also had a fear of finding that whatever it was meant harm. But then again, it had come from a cruiser from his planet, so what was the worst it could do?

Arrival at the crashed remains of the ship revealed a smoking piece of metal. It was clearly an escape pod, burnt and buried half into the ground. A tree had fallen on top of it, but the hatch used to get in and out was unblocked. Louie hesitantly approached the hatch, and reached.

It opened just before he grabbed the handle. Out came a man in a suit just like his, only instead of blue, or red like Olimar's, this suit had yellow features. He was a little taller than Louie, but he didn't look like a reserved pilot. He looked like the kind of guy who went out to a party every other day.

The pilot introduced himself as Serbol. He had blonde hair like Louie but had a little more than the novice pilot. Something about him also shouted "high-school bully". Louie wasn't very sure he liked that, but he couldn't just leave him there.

The Pikmin didn't seem to notice him like they noticed Olimar when in Louie's command. To them, he was probably just a new leader that hadn't assumed control yet. Louie liked the fact that he was in command of the green little aliens and this Serbol wasn't.

After a brief and awkwardly silent introduction to each other, Serbol eyed the Pikmin, who stared blankly at him. The original green Pikmin, the first one that came out of that Onion (we'll just call him GREEN, it seems to work, since I really can't call any of them anything better), saw both pilots and put together that they were of the same origin. This must mean that this second leader was just as reliable!

Serbol, as would be expected, wasn't very comfortable seeing a pilot lower rank than him being followed by strange little green aliens. They had one large antennae on their head with a leaf on top, which wasn't what he expected. Freakiest of all were the blue eyes. He'd expected red or black, but blue with no obvious pupils was new.

He looked at Louie. His first impression of the blue pilot was the young kid who always got his lunch money beaten out of him. That was what Serbol saw, instinctively. The kid brother who lived in his brother's shadow, lean and not so mean. Of course, Louie was wearing blue, not green. Regardless, a first impression was only that, a first impression.

Serbol received a quick and simple review on the Onion and the Pikmin, but Louie left out the part where these green Pikmin were a complete new species to him and therefore a mystery to them both. He also left out that there were other Pikmin species he'd already learned about and worked with barely a week ago.

Apparently Serbol knew about Louie. According to what Serbol knew, Louie had gone on an expedition with Captain Olimar to save the Hocotate Freight from a massive debt on this planet where Olimar had miraculously rebuilt his ship on. Then he knew that Louie got left behind somehow and was found "kidnapped" by a monster.

"Monster" was where Serbol didn't look like a bully anymore. Like Louie had felt and Olimar before him, he felt helpless and defenseless alone on this planet, now that he knew there was wildlife that was always hungry.

That's were Louie decided to give a demonstration of what Pikmin could do. He asked Serbol to follow him, and knew that the green Pikmin would trail right behind him. They walked for barely two minutes in the burnt forest before finding an Orange Bulborb. Louie acted all scared and worried to frighten Serbol. They approached the bulborb with caution, Louie knew that if they got too close, the monster would sense them close and wake up, turning the tables to a nasty direction. Louie pretended to look desperate for help, and asked Serbol if he could throw.

On three, both pilots began to throw as fast as they could. While they kept their distance, Louie expected the Orange Bulborb to sense the Pikmin coming and wake up, but strangely, it didn't. He wondered if maybe it was just a lucky start, or it wasn't really that used to its sixth sense.

It didn't matter. While the Pikmin were thrown off easily, Louie and Serbol were hidden behind a bush and were in sight. Louie cursed as the Pikmin were all but vulnerable. But the Orange Bulborb didn't even look at them! Now, Louie knew something was wrong. That NEVER happened with a monster like this.

GREEN was thrown into the air and landed on the Orange Bulborb's face. He whacked it twice before almost getting shaken off. But he grabbed onto the monster's antennae eye-stem thing. This jerked the bulborb's sight, and it just fell over. All the Pikmin were now attacking, but the bulborb didn't bite a single one. Within seconds, the monster was dead.

Twenty Pikmin carried the beast back to the Green Onion and Serbol was shown how Pikmin grew in numbers. He helped Louie pluck all the new Pikmin out and was willing to help work back to the rest of the ship survivors.

This was where Louie stopped. He didn't have any intention of finding the other survivors. Shacho was probably with them, and if not, he'd run into Olimar sooner or later. And besides, he'd easily be remembered as the guy who stole the Golden Ship from Hocotate's ship yard and ran off to a distant planet for reasons unknown…

Maybe that was flexible. Louie could always lie and say that someone took him hostage and took him and the ship and disappeared, hoping it would look like Louie was solely responsible…

Eh, that didn't matter now. What mattered now was finding out why the ship was here, what were they after now, and was Louie involved in any way?

----

The majority of the hull that had survived the crash was sitting motionless in the Valley of Repose. Pilots and scientists that had traveled aboard the freighter were either dead or wishing they were. Everyone was in some sort of pain, they were the ones that didn't get to the escape pods and had to hold on to something when the crash happened.

Shacho was not among them. Shacho had been in the Golden Ship, one of the few ten or so that had escaped the ship. This meant that there were several pilots and scientists scattered across the planet now. Their life support was likely to last, but what about the people in the escape pods? There was no guarantee that their pods had all the supplies they needed to survive. At best, this was a desperate rescue mission now to find everyone that had survived and get them back to safety. None of them knew where they were, but they knew that there was a pilot on this planet who had been here three times before and survived each one, the legendary Captain Olimar.

If he was here, and he had his own vessel, there was no doubt he would survive on his own, and no doubt that he'd find them before they found him.

----

But before that could happen, a Gatling Groink had found Olimar first. Those things were annoying, dangerous, and they revived themselves!!! Olimar had defeated them before, most times without taking too many losses, twice without any, but that didn't mean they were any less powerful.

The groink extended its cannon and fired another three shots. They exploded inches from Olimar and knocked him onto his back. Three Pikmin died. Olimar rolled back over and called for his Pikmin to regroup. The Groink showed no signs of stopping. Olimar had always hoped that maybe they'd run out of ammunition in the middle of a fight, but so far, that hadn't happened.

The Wistful Wild still represented autumn, and it was still a very brown place, but flowers still bloomed here, including a flower-type called a Margaret, which the captain had cataloged the last time he was here.

The yellow Margarets grew taller than Olimar stood, and grew in small groups, but under the pressure of the Gatling Groink, Olimar had forgotten that one species of creatures hunted by camouflaging itself as one of these beautiful flowers.

Just as Olimar stepped over it and the Pikmin group ran behind him, the sole Creeping Chrysanthemum in the flower field emerged, knocking them all over. The Gatling Groink hesitated, but only for a moment. Three more shots were fired. Olimar panicked and called for every Pikmin he could see. His family was just noise in the mic. now. His wife was screaming, his daughter was trying to register what just happened, and his son was trying to convince his father he could save every last one of them. But maybe he was just talking to himself in panic.

BOOM! The groink's missiles landed. Half the Pikmin were thrown out of focus, the other half safer by Olimar's side. Somehow, no Pikmin died by the explosion, but the Chrysanthemum had felt the blast just as well, and wasn't very sure coming out of hiding was such a good idea anymore. But it took a bite, and snatched five Pikmin right out of Olimar's group. It swallowed, and Olimar could only grimace and feel a newfound hatred for these beasts.

The Groink fired again, this time only hitting the Creeper. The freakish plant-beast turned and roared at the mechanical predator. The bluff meant nothing to the Gatling monster. It fired once again, severely weakening its new opponent. The chrysanthemum reached down and tried to take a bite out of the Groink, but only clashed with its metal shield. The groink tipped over and the plant-monster recoiled in surprise. The latter turned back around to snack on more Pikmin, but the army of reds and Olimar were gone.

The Captain gathered the surviving 54 Pikmin and ran as fast as he could, away from the new battle. He'd never seen two species on the planet fight each other. Something must have happened. Maybe just the shock of the earthquakes that had been ravaging the planet spooked them, or maybe the same earthquakes reminded them that they had to eat to survive, and probably turned on another.

It was likely he was overestimating how intelligent these creatures were. But whatever the cause, he knew there was going to be a lot more chaos on the planet now.

----

Shacho agreed wholeheartedly. He walked just a few steps out of the small arena where his ship had landed to find three Cloaking Burrow-Nits appear out of nowhere and surround him.

The first burrow-nit extended its tentacle-like snout and missed Shacho by inches. The president dove to the side, but only collided with the second creature's grey face. He was thrown back into the middle of the triangle. He looked at the third beast, and saw its eyes. They had a certain look in them, and it wasn't the look a hunter had when it had its prey in its clutches. No, there was a look in its eyes Shacho knew all too well; fear.

But right now, what feelings the monsters were feeling didn't really matter. Shacho was still in danger. The third burrow-nit struck, but this time Shacho thought about what to do next. As the creature's tongue shot out, Shacho ducked under it and jumped onto the beast. He climbed to the top and rolled onto the other side, and ran for his life. The two first burrow-nits jumped over the third and chased him, but went a little slower than the president. The third trailed behind, several feet behind now.

Shacho ran into the small arena where the Ultra-Spicy Berries had grown before. They were still there and growing, but better than that was the extra surprise he found, already parked there!

This was the same landing site Olimar had used when he called this place the Forest of Hope. The yellow Onion came here naturally, and eleven yellow Pikmin were released and sitting atop the tall plants growing berries. Shacho spotted them instantly and a huge smile spread onto his face! He called all eleven down.

(Once again, we'll call the first yellow Pikmin YELLOW) YELLOW jumped down third and stared at the president with a face that showed that common mix of curiosity, loyalty, and the strange joy of seeing a leader again.

The President turned around. The Cloaking Burrow-nits had not yet gotten here. He learned from Olimar that a small number would not likely defeat one of those creatures, let alone three. He climbed the berry plant's stem, and the Pikmin followed. He made sure they did not jump back down, and all twelve beings held onto the stem for dear life as the burrow-nits tried to reach them. Their tongues didn't reach, but it was a frightening experience nonetheless. Shacho just wished that something, anything, would happen.

He got his wish. A fully grown Red Bulborb walked from the far side of the arena. It passed the Yellow Onion and noticed the three burrow-nits trying to reach a group of Pikmin. Naturally, Pikmin were a better meal and tasted much better, and were normally easier to snack on, but at times like this, with the world seemingly falling apart, any meal, even one with a hard shell like that.

The bulborb stomped forward and grabbed the first cloaking burrow-nit. By the prey's luck, the monster had grabbed the backside and was trying to bite down on the shell. That was like trying to crush a cold hard stone with your teeth, more painful that satisfying.

The Bulborb dropped the bug, which landed upside-down, and struggled to get up. The bulborb tried its luck with the second meal. This time, it bit down on the soft side, and almost instantly, only the shell remained. Shacho watched in awe, but he also knew that as soon as the three blue creatures were gone, nothing would stop the bulborb from going after them, too. He knew it would be able to reach them. He climbed down and called all the yellow Pikmin down with him. He ran to where the bulborb had come from, for some reason, praying that he'd be safer if he went where the predator had already looked.

The bulborb swallowed the edible side of the third burrow-nit. It turned back to the original, still trying to get back up. It never got the chance, and the last thing it saw was the bulborb lunging towards it with its mouth wide open.

The monster looked around, searching for the Pikmin it had seen before. Nothing. There was a yellow object here, the Onion, but it was not food. Hmm. Oh, well. It had eaten today. It continued its search, wandering the opposite way, farther and farther from the president and the Pikmin. Shacho sighed in relief. He had escaped the planet's beasts! He was very lucky!

His alarm rang, it was almost sundown. He cursed. But he called the eleven Pikmin and walked back to their Onion, and sent them all in. As he did, he counted that there were thirty five yellow Pikmin in the onion in total, which was much better than five.

He walked carefully back to the golden ship. He was just happy to see that it hadn't been torn apart or swallowed whole! He ran towards it as he heard the wildlife in the forest starting to stir. He got in the pilot's seat and slowly started the engines. As he left, he could see the Yellow Onion lifting off to join him. He could see at least three red bulborbs in the forest now, until he took off, and got to the point where he couldn't see the forsaken place at all.

----

Olimar and his Pikmin returned to the Onion and Dolphin. He wasn't happy to admit that he'd lost Pikmin, but at least the Cannon Beetle and Creeping Chrysanthemum that died today had been harvested! With the 54 that he'd used them to gather, that made a Red Pikmin count of 114!

Cataloging the Pikmin growth suddenly reminded him that he hadn't written a log on his expeditions yet! How could he have been so foolish to not write a log??? After bidding his family goodnight, he got straight to work.

_Captain Olimar's Ship Log,_

_Day 2:_

_I somehow forgot to write a log for day one. I must have been so overwhelmed with all that's happened, I forgot that I was still on duty! I'm back on this Distant Planet, which doesn't seem so frustrating or horrific to me anymore. Still, it frightens me at times. Yesterday I encountered a strange tiger-like monster I'd never encountered before! Thank heavens for my Guard Satellite, or I wouldn't have survived my first day! Anyway, I'll name and catalog any new creatures I encounter later in this journal._

_Louie seems to have returned here for a reason beyond my understanding. He was left here the first time he came, and when we came back to find him, he was with a Titan Dweevil! My theories of him actually commanding it still linger in my mind, but I'll never know for sure until I find him._

_This planet has been shaken by earthquakes worse than anything Hocotate has ever seen. I can only imagine what kind of trauma the Pikmin and other creatures of this planet saw. Maybe that's why the monsters fight each other. Are they so scared or hungry they'll jump at anything? This planet never ceases to surprise me. That large shuttle that I saw crash this morning must be a sign that more people have arrived on this planet. I must find them and Louie before they die here! I feel responsible for that! The Wistful Wild turned up empty, Louie is not here. I shall resume my search in a different section. Maybe I'll try the Forest Navel tomorrow, I crashed there, but I never really looked around… It's settled. I have over 100 red Pikmin. I'll manage!_

_New Creature: Large tiger with a slick and spiked bone structure, most noticeable by the bizarre spinal cord. Its fur isn't thick, which means it's probably not able to survive in the cold, but its large teeth tell me it's a powerful foe. Just for now, "SABER PANTHERA" will be its name, just until I get real scientists to take a look at it._

----

Louie and Serbol watched the green Pikmin climb into their Onion. The Onion seemed to be ready to lift off, but it had nothing to follow. Louie and Serbol had no ship. But seeing as monsters were already crawling out of every hole and crevice, they ran to Serbol's escape pod and hid in there.

The survivors of the freighter crash gathered inside the hull, however scorched and no longer flyable, still safe from simple-minded predators. Every blast door was closed, so not even Sheargrubs could get him. The group of pilots and scientists, an exact count of 23, hid in the ship until daylight reappeared. But in the Valley or Repose, even with all the chaos, a foe that had once lived at the bottom of a sublevel here had emerged.

* * *

**Simple enough to be clear for those who played the games and know what's at the bottom of those sublevels. I always hated the Valley of Repose for some reason. But anyway, for those of you criticizing the green Pikmin, sorry I didn't meet your expectations. But then again, I have more planned for them than just what you might be guessing. We didn't discover all the White Pikmin's abilities right away, did we? Well, maybe, but Green Pikmin still have a few things to field test. Oh, yeah, all opinions are welcome. I'll be back soon with more!**


	4. Newcomers

**Do I still have to mention that I sadly don't own Pikmin or any of Nintendo's trademarks or logos or anything, all that wonderful copyright shtuff and rights reserved still goes to Nintendo.**

* * *

_Shacho stood in the hangar of the huge cruiser, admiring the ships and small shuttles all around him. But none stood out like his golden ship did. He was quite proud of it, actually, and he knew nobody would be able to match up to what he had accomplished._

_While he didn't see it, the pilots controlling the ship came out of hyperspace and could see the Distant Planet less than five minutes away. Among them was Serbol and another pilot named Shiyo, some weirdo with an accent and a distant relation the president of Hocotate Freight himself._

_When the captain of the freighter alerted them that they were coming into orbit, everyone put their suits on. Serbol put on his yellow gloves and life support pack while Shiyo put on his own green gloves and life support pack._

_Shacho already had his black suit on and was more than ready to lift off of the freighter at any time and dive after Captain Olimar and Louie. The Ship hadn't been so anxious, but was willing to obey the President and now understood that Louie was in a life-threatening situation._

_The next thing Shacho knew, the ship had shaken violently. Almost every ship had tipped over. Every pilot and scientist in the room had fallen to the floor._

_Outside, a meteor had struck the starboard side of the freighter, and a huge hole now sat happily on the side. The cooler nearest to the scene shut down. The engines quickly overheated until one of them exploded. The ship lost control of itself, and was no longer able to direct its path towards the Pikmin Planet. While still going in that direction, there was no way the ship would land safely._

_Shacho grabbed onto his golden ship, which instantly sucked him into the pilot's seat. Shiyo had entered the hangar and quickly ran to a control panel. He pressed a series of buttons and pulled a lever, and the huge blast doors opened. The entire hangar was sucked out into the atmosphere. Shiyo jumped back and entered a small escape pod, and waited for it to be sucked out of the ship just like everything else in the huge room._

_On the outside, the golden ship and several others darted out of the ship, and none of them landed perfectly, but Shacho had survived, and so it was more than likely others, maybe even Shiyo, had survived as well._

_----_

Morning came, and Olimar was the first to experience the bright colors of the sunrise. No matter how harsh the planet's inhabitants were, no matter how bad the situation was, Olimar did thoroughly enjoy watching the colorful sunrises every morning.

But now he landed in the Forest Navel, this time in the middle of a huge field, the same field that had previously been occupied by several Fiery Blowhogs.

Olimar walked out of his ship and called out 100 hundred red Pikmin. Unlike in the Wistful Wild, all 100 Pikmin slid out of the Onion. He knew that there were fifteen wild Pikmin somewhere in the wistful wild, but he wanted to have a variety of Pikmin as his side before he charged back into that freakish place.

He looked north. There was the huge lake with the odd crystals, and to the east was the huge crevice he'd crashed in two days ago. This place seemed naturally dark, but he was in a strangely good mood today. All the Pikmin stared at him, waiting for his next command, he decided to walk west. The last time he had gone that way on his first adventure, he'd met the Puffstool and Beady Long Legs. He idly wondered what new life-threatening and fearsome beasts stood in their places now!

Breadbugs. Lots of Breadbugs. That was all there was in the Puffstool's old habitat. There were over twenty of them, all just waddling around their dens, searching for food that wasn't there.

Captain Olimar sighed, and his family laughed at him. He walked over to the arena Beady Long Legs had been defeated in before, hoping to find something worth his attention. What he found instantly told him to run back the other way, and the Pikmin were more than happy to run with him!

----

Louie and Serbol emerged from the escape pod, moving slowly, watching every bush, praying that nothing would jump out at them.

Nothing. The only thing new around here was that the green Onion had relocated to a few feet from the pod itself.

Serbol kept looking behind him every few seconds, in fear that something would just jump out of a burnt tree or materialize out of nothing. Louie, on the other hand, had a complete recollection of his experiences with the Titan Dweevil and was no longer worried about himself. Right now, he was only worried about Serbol returning to the others who had crashed here and telling them where he was. Worse, he was afraid he'd tell them about these green Pikmin. Right now, they were Louie's secret weapon. They were his only weapon! He didn't want to lose that to this guy.

While he began to think up a few ways to resolve the problem, he called out all the green Pikmin in the Onion. Each one slid out, ran to Louie's side, and waited for orders. Again, Serbol couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable next to the Pikmin, but he took Louie's advice when he said that these Pikmin were the only defense available here.

They group walked for a while, not exactly knowing what to do. Louie knew he wanted to harvest more Pikmin, but he had to make Serbol believe they were looking for a way to get back to the crash site.

They walked until they reached a canyon, one that looked straight down for a very long time. They could see the bottom of the canyon, but just barely. Looking closer, both saw that there was movement down there.

If they could have seen further, they would have seen a large group of Bulborbs, Fiery, orange, red, larva, and a few spotty bulbears, all migrating across the canyon. They came a long way from the Forest of Hope/Awakening Wood and the Distant Spring/Perplexing Pool, and were looking for a new place to live and hunt without being eaten by the other species of wildlife that usually never attacked the bulborb species.

Louie and Serbol stared down into the cave for what felt like an hour. After giving up trying to find out what the creatures down there were, they turned around and began to walk back. Two steps from the canyon, a Wollywog landed in front of the two pilots. Louie's eyes widened and Serbol almost lost himself with fear.

Louie accidently dismissed the Pikmin, and the soldiers all grouped up. The Wollywog jumped back up and came down between Louie and Serbol. The latter was speechless, almost frozen with fear, and Louie just didn't have anything to say.

A second Wollywog arrived and came down with an impact strong enough to knock Serbol off his feet. Each Wollywog focused on a different pilot. Louie's attacker jumped again and came down just as Louie dove out of the way, landed two inches from the canyon edge. He slid to the point where he could look straight down into the canyon. He looked back to see the Wollywog jump again.

Serbol ducked and ran with his arms flailing. This childhood bully was now the prey in this alien world. He dove from another smashing attack, until he and Louie were standing next to each other. Both were inches from the canyon ledge, and both thought the same thing at the same time. They waited until their Wollywog attackers jumped, and then moved out of the way. Both frogs landed on the ledge with enough force to tear that section off the ground. Both tumbled straight into the abyss.

Louie and Serbol looked back and cheered, gave each other a high-five, and got back to their feet. Louie slipped right back down and found himself hanging onto the ledge. Serbol panicked and dove to grab his arm. He tried to pull Louie up to safety, but then he slipped and fell down too.

Louie's arms flailed as he looked for something to grab onto, finally grasping Serbol's left foot as the yellow pilot grabbed onto the canyon ledge for dear life. But they didn't stay like that forever. Louie's hands slipped, and he was helpless as he screamed and fell down towards the bottom of the canyon with the Wollywogs and the horde of bulborbs.

Serbol pulled himself up with some difficulty. He called the Pikmin to his side and looked back, still unable to accept that Louie had just fallen to his death.

----

Louie was still grasping for something to hand onto even as he plunged down the cave. He fumbled for his pack, hoping that somehow, a magic parachute button would appear and save his life. But of course, nothing was there. He looked down. he was halfway down, and he would have done anything to suddenly stop moving.

He suddenly stopped moving, just like he asked. Something had grabbed in from the canyon wall and was reeling him into its cave. It was a long tentacle much thicker than the tongue of a Cloaking Burrow-nit, but something told the novice pilot it wasn't saving him to be nice. Like all things on the planet, it was most likely hungry.

The tentacle dragged him into the cave that had been carved into the wall just thirty yards above the canyon floor. The only source of light this deep in the hole was his comm. antennae, and all it illuminated was more tentacles. He suddenly remembered to panic. He picked and pried himself loose from the tentacle that grabbed him, to fall two feet before another tentacle wrapped around his waist. He expanded his chest and waited for it to get its grip, then he breathed out and tried to slip through the small space he had earned. Nothing. He punched the tentacle in hopes of weakening it.

Nothing happened. There were several tentacles all around him, but the only one that held him brought him deeper into the cave, where he met the owner of all those arms, a squid that seemed to occupy the entire cave's height and width. Arms not included, the squid's entire body was about the same size as the S.S. Dolphin or The Ship.

Louie looked into its two beady black eyes, and screamed. He saw the center of the beast open up, revealing a very grotesque beak just waiting to chew him to pieces. He began to fight against the iron grip the tentacle had again. He didn't want to die here!

Moments from being consumed, the squid suddenly jolted and shook violently, dropping Louie to the cold and slimy cave floor. He got up with some difficulty and backed away slowly, still watching as the giant squid flailed and panicked for seemingly no reason.

On the other side of the cave, at the squid's backside, a member of the Snagret family had found the squid and bitten into its backside. This member of the Snagret family had been referenced to before, but Louie had never actually seen this Burrowing Snarrow before. He couldn't though, because the squid was being devoured and he decided to run for his life.

He reached the edge of the cave. The squid was going to die, but he didn't want to be here in case the monster on the other side deciding to see what else was here. But he also really, really didn't want to dive into the flurry of bulborb species.

The burrowing snarrow quickly devoured the tasty squid and, as Louie predicted, searching the rest of the narrow cave. It slid to the entrance, where Louie was standing. Looking back, all he saw was a monster with a yellow beak and a tan body heading straight for him. He jumped. He landed on a Spotty Bulbear, the worst place to have been.

At the cave, a Burrowing Snarrow appeared. It looked much like the Burrowing Snagret, only it had tan feathers instead of blue. And it was much longer. It reached the end of the cave and looked down at the feast Louie had just led it to.

The burrowing snarrow instantly began to pick at the bulborbs. The bulborb larva were snatch instantly and swallowed. The bulborbs had no defense.

Neither did Louie as the Spotty Bulbear he was on top of tried to shake him off. He grabbed onto the creature's eye stem, hanging on for dear life. Panic had arisen among the bulborbs and bulbears as the Burrowing Snarrow began to pick at the young bulborbs and bulbears. The adults of the species were too big to eat in one bite, but if the snarrow was still hungry after this, they'd be next.

Louie jumped off the Bulbear and grabbed onto the canyon wall opposite of the snarrow. He began to climb, willing to do anything to escape this disaster. On the way up, a Sheargrub burrowed out of the wall. Before it could even screetch, Louie grabbed it and tossed it down into the mix. He climbed for a very long time, and got lucky. Not a single creature had intercepted him. The Burrowing Snarrow claimed the new cave as its own and the bulborbs ran away from the scene.

----

Shacho landed in the small arena of the Awakening Wood where the Ultra-Spicy Berries grew. The Yellow Onion landed a few feet away from him. He summoned all 35 yellow Pikmin to join him outside. After collecting a few berries, Shacho had two spicy potions at his disposal. He felt more comfortable with the Pikmin at his side. He walked out of the arena into the larger opening, only occupied by two Dwarf Red Bulborbs and a fully grown Red Bulborb parent. There was a skeleton not too far from them, a group of discarded waste that had been tossed out. Shacho didn't know it, but those were the remains of the giant bird that had been eaten by the Snagrets two days ago.

The President paused. Why was he here again? Oh yeah, he was looking for Olimar and Louie and the rest of the survivors! He had almost forgotten about that.

He wiped out the two young bulborbs and harvested their remains for another eight Pikmin, a grand total of 43. By sheer luck, those 43 defeated the mother bulborb, with the help of a spicy spray. The additional 12 Pikmin joined the fray and followed Shacho across the Awakening Wood, largely intact, minus some larger crevices, but the only huge canyon was a few feet wide and was near the Hole of Beasts, somewhere Shacho wasn't interested in.

A small crevice, however, did seem more promising than at first sight. The hole in the ground seemed to be more like a hole in the ground, a tunnel leading to the underground, much like the sublevels of his previous adventure. He looked behind him. He had 55 Pikmin, he could probably survive this. Shrugging, he walked in, the Pikmin following him one by one.

----

Captain Olimar and his red Pikmin ran for their lives as an Emperor Bulblax chased them out of Beady Long Legs' old arena. The monster was running as fast as it could, not very fast at all, and appeared to be very territorial. RED slipped off the edge and landed in the midst of the huge Breadbug colony, ignored by them all but still bound to be eaten if left there all night. Other red Pikmin slipped and fell, until Olimar lost enough to have to go back for them. He leaped and landed amongst the Breadbug gathering. He called for all his Pikmin, until he knew he had them all under his command. He felt a sudden shadow fall on him, and saw the Breadbugs running. Without even looking up, he knew the Emperor Bulblax had jumped after him. He dove, and heard the monster land inches behind him. He heard the sound that Pikmin made when they died. He called his Pikmin together. Out of the hundred that he had just a moment ago, now there were 78. This monster had just killed 22 of his Pikmin! This wouldn't do.

The Bulblax king lashed out its tongue, sweeping up three Breadbugs and two Pikmin. Olimar had had enough! As the monster swallowed and momentarily choked on the Breadbugs, the captain tossed all his Pikmin on the monster's face.

The Bulblax jumped up and knocked all the Pikmin off its face. It roared angrily, spooking everyone there. All the Breadbugs ran back into their dens and every Pikmin was running in circles, terrified.

Captain Olimar called each one to him, regrouping. The emperor lashed out its tongue again, this time catching nothing. But 76 Pikmin found their way onto its face, whacking like crazy.

The Bulblax knocked them off a second time, and went straight to sweeping them in with its tongue. It caught a whopping 33 Pikmin in one munch. Olimar could hear his family screaming in horror as Olimar threw the remaining 43 Pikmin onto the monster's face.

The monster fell to its knees and finally keeled over. The 43 red Pikmin got off and returned to Olimar's side, waiting for orders. Olimar stood there, and would have spat on the beast He had just lost a shameful 57 Pikmin to a simple Emperor Bulbax. This had never happened to him before. He felt disgraced with himself. He didn't say a word as the Giant Breadbug came to harvest the beast's corpse, and didn't say a word to his family as the Pikmin grabbed the corpse and dragged the stubborn Giant Breadbug all the way to the red Onion. The seeds poured out, a whopping 50 seeds burying themselves into the ground.

The Giant Breadbug ran away, shocked and hurt. Olimar didn't care. He just sat there, monitoring the Dolphin and using its radar to search for any traces of a pilot or ship debris here in the Forest Navel. The scans only located small fragments of metal scattered across the Navel, but nothing that could prove useful or keep a lost pilot alive. Olimar waited until the Pikmin seeds grew into flowers before picking them out of the ground.

----

At the Valley of Repose, dawn had come and the survivors of the crash had begun to open the blast doors and search for a sign of the other pilots on the planet.

The 23 pilots and scientists surrounded the hull of the ship and searched for a danger. There was nothing in sight. All the strange monsters they had seen at night had left, given up or exhausted.

On the other side of the Valley or Repose, an escape pod lay half-buried in the cold snow. The hatch was open and footsteps led two about three yards away, where Shiyo stood with his arms wrapped around himself, shivering from the cold. The snow was blowing onto his helmet and he couldn't have been surprised if his helmet suddenly turned to ice.

It didn't, but He was still in the middle of a blizzard. Geographically, he was a few yards west of the Subterranean Complex. He didn't know it, but ironically, the huge shuttle's hull and its 23 surviving passengers were ridiculously close to where Louie had first landed on this planet, just seconds after the Ship hit a tree and knocked the poor novice out.

He had spotted the Subterranean Complex hole, along with the red flag on it, which Olimar had placed there to mark its completion. But there was a crevice, a small canyon about ten feet wide and a mile long, spreading far enough west into the blizzard so Shiyo couldn't see the end, which had obviously occurred here.

A small white beast climbed out of the crevice. It was a Snow Bulborb, but the small creature was not here for food, it was here for escape. From what, Shiyo didn't know. Nor did he put together that if the native beast was running, he should, too. He didn't think of that.

He walked back to the escape pod and got inside, closed the hatch, and rubbed his hands together. He looked for a package of space noodles and tried to warm them up. Just to be safe, he let his pack resupply while the noodles cooked. When his life support precautions were complete, he grabbed the noodles and began to take off his helmet.

The pod shook violently. He dropped the bowl and quickly placed his helmet back on, latching it as fast as possible. He looked around the inside of the pod. Nothing had warned him of an incoming ship coming to pick him up. What was happening?

He felt the sensation he was getting heavier, but the pod was only being lifted at a tremendous speed. As soon as it stopped, he dove to the hatch and opened it, only to see that he was looking down, the ground being a hundred feet below him. His eyes widened, but the pod shook again. He fell right out, panicked, and grabbed onto the hatch door just in time. He looked forward, and saw a mechanical hand grasping his pod. The gears began to spin faster and faster, and the giant metal hand crushed the pod until it looked like a ball of iron.

He let go of the pod hatch and found himself holding onto the metal hand itself. It didn't realize he was there, but he then decided to look at the metallic limb's owner.

He hadn't seen the Man-at-Legs before, but he saw it. The metallic hand started to return to the surface, but he started to climb until he reached its metal head. All he saw was a metallic sphere with exhaust pipes, a metallic arm-leg, and three other insect ones.

The Man-at-Legs had emerged from the Subterranean Complex's new crevice, and has caused chaos underground as it made its way up. Down below in its original home, there were mostly corpses of all the wildlife stupid enough to attack or stay in sight. The Man-at-Legs had defeated them all.

Now it marched towards the large black hunk of metal in the blizzard, the hull of the crashed shuttle. Shiyo held onto an exhaust pipe as the machine marched quickly towards his fellow pilots.

The 23 survivors looked towards the sound of clanking metal, only to see a huge spider-like machine march towards them. Most of them ran into the hull. The ones who did not found themselves dodging the monster's arachnid legs.

The turrets of the hull were turned on again. They immediately rolled over to face the Man-at-Legs. They fired all at once, but most of the bullets bounced off the creature's hard shell.

Sensing an attack, the Man-at-Legs stopped moving and the lower half of its head opened up, the machine gun in it turning on. Two seconds past, and then the monster fired, over and over and over again! The turrets were gone instantly, but the machine would not stop. It began firing at the hull. The machine's intelligence told it where to fire. It scanned the entire ship as a whole and viewed crucial points that held its structure. The machine looked for the weakest points that were penetrable by the machine guns simply strength and firing range. Two points were marked. Both were shot with 4 bullets. The hull creaked loudly, vibrating through the snow deep enough for the mitites deep down to think they were having seizures.

The ceiling collapsed just as all the survivors were jumping out of the large ship's remains. By pure luck, the machine gun retreated back into the fiery abyss of the Man-at-Leg's head. The exhaust pipes heated up until Shiyo had to let go. He plunged down and fell into a soft blanket of snow. He couldn't see, but he suddenly heard light footsteps all around him.

The pilots and scientists ran to the other side of the hull, hoping the machine wouldn't be able to see them. But the Man-at-Legs grabbed one chunk of the hull with its mechanical arm, tore it off, and then lifted one side of the remains and threw it to the side. The machine gun emerged again. The bullets would not penetrate their suits, but it would take them down for the rest of the day. The gun fired several shots. Out of the 23, 15 were hit and knocked unconscious. 8 remained, and they knew they didn't stand a chance.

Without warning, blurs of white passed by them all and jumped onto the Man-at-Legs. The machine seemed to panic, the machine gun being unable to fire subjects so close. But it fired anyway, throwing blasts of firepower all over the place. This was where the remaining 8 pilots decided to take cover once again.

Shiyo got up and brushed the snow off his helmet only to see a bullet fly past him and burry itself in the snow inches from his crotch. He looked up at the deadly machine. There were white creatures all over it, whacking the machine without pause.

One of them was knocked off and fell into the snow. It got up instantly and looked up. At that moment, Shiyo saw that it had big red eyes and resembled a pikpik carrot…

It suddenly hit him. These were the Pikmin they had read about! The description of the pikpik carrots similarity matched, they had stems on their head with leaves, and these were white, which meant they were a newer species of Pikmin Olimar had only recently discovered!

But what was interesting to him was that they were taking the giant machine down! The spider's mechanical leg and been crippled, the hand being ripped apart, sparks flying out of the arm, and the joint connecting it to the head was being ripped out! These tiny white fellows were incredible!

Next the bottom half of the machine's head came down again, but this time it was detached. The Pikmin had torn the machine gun out. The joint to its mechanical leg had been taken out, and the machine creaked as it leaned over to one side and crashed into the huge shuttle's debris. All the Pikmin had been knocked off, but none had died. The Pikmin got back up and continued to fight. The insectoid legs of the beast were flailing in every direction as it tried to get up, until the monster stopped moving, the exhaust pipes released a climatic amount of steam, and the legs crumbled to dust. The head seemed to fold on itself and then dissolved. Nothing remained to prove that it had been here except for the mechanical detached leg nearby.

The white Pikmin cheered to themselves and grouped up. The 8 survivors grouped together and admired the Pikmin. One of the pilots used his whistle and called all 42 of the white Pikmin. They ran to his side, and he suddenly found himself enjoying the position, seeing as now 42 alien creatures now saw him as their leader.

Shiyo got up, but he felt a shadow come over him. He looked to his right and saw a huge bird-vulture monster come out of nowhere and grab him in its claws. The other pilots were helpless and just watched in horror as the monster took him away.

----

Night had fallen across the planet altogether. The survivors of the crash had grouped up with the white Pikmin and were doing their best to make themselves at home inside what remained of the ship, along with the white Pikmin.

Louie had reached the top of the canyon, but was on the wrong side. On the other side, Serbol had returned to the Green Onion and returned the Pikmin and slept inside the escape pod just like last night. Louie sighed heavily and turned around, looking for somewhere to go. He began to walk until he found a cave, and empty one with nothing living inside it. He decided to spend the night there.

The Golden Ship remained on the ground, as Shacho and his yellow Pikmin had entered a cave underground and had not yet returned. What they had found down there, the Ship was about to find out, as it finally deployed its research pod.

Shiyo struggled helplessly in the claws of the flying bird, the same species of bird that had attacked the yellow Onion. He gave up after an hour and just looked forward, wondering in curiosity and terror where the bird was taking him.

----

Finally, Captain Olimar plucked the remaining Red Pikmin and lifted off. Olimar didn't have much to say, so he bid his family goodnight as they tried to tell him the Pikmin deaths were not his fault. He wrote his journal before going to bed.

_Captain Olimar's Ship Log,_

_Day 3:_

_Today I lost a ridiculous amount of Pikmin to an Emperor Bulblax. It just crushed and ate half my Pikmin within seconds. How do the Pikmin still believe I can keep them alive after this? All day I helped them rebuild their numbers, and now over two hundred red Pikmin are in the Onion, but still I wonder, what is it they see in me that makes me so trustworthy to them?_

_Louie was not in the Forest Navel. Nobody was. Tomorrow I will search the Distant Spring for a sign of hope, if not something better. But I promise, I will not lose Pikmin tomorrow. I hate watching them die. They look at me in their last moments and have an expression of horror as they seem to call out to me, begging for me to help them somehow, and all I do is call their brothers and save them. No, tomorrow, and hopefully everyday after that starting now, Pikmin deaths will be minimum._

* * *

**This was not my best chapter, but next time, I promise I'll do my best, especially since I have a scene planned that should prove to be very interesting! But I am curious, what seemed best about this story so far? I mean, what makes it most interesting? Is it interesting at all? Help me improve, so I can write something you guys really like! But regardless, thanks for reading!**


	5. Wildlife

**Do I still have to mention that I sadly don't own Pikmin or any of Nintendo's trademarks or logos or anything? All that wonderful copyright shtuff and rights reserved still goes to Nintendo.**

**Anyway, I think it's time I started bringing the creatures of the Distant Planet into the fight against the Pikmin as we all know them from, not just adjustments to the world, watching them fight each other, and chasing Louie(which there will be plenty more of). Maybe that's why I brought Shacho into a sublevel…**

* * *

Dawn had arrived, and slowly illuminated the planet, and from Olimar's point of view, it really was a beautiful sight. He looked down. He could see large birds, the same that had stolen Shiyo, flying through the Wistful Wild. He steered away from that wretched place and continued his path, just like he said in his journal entry. Today he was going to explore the Distant Spring.

The Red Onion and the S.S. Dolphin gracefully touched down on the grassy fields, right in the exact same spot where he had landed here on his first adventure. Before he called out Pikmin, he looked around, and pulled up a holographic screen that his ship's radar showed him. Calculations with the Analog Computer confirmed that the land here was still ridiculously moist, and while there had also been several huge cracks and crevices formed here, almost all of them had been filled with water, enough so that they were almost unnoticeable.

One crevice the radar located was located in the huge lake behind him. This was where the Smokey Progg egg had been beforehand. That crack in the ground had been filled with water and it was slowly connecting. The second canyon too large to cross was in the same place his UV Lamp had first landed here. He would no longer be able to reach that small section of mazes, but he didn't care much for it. The third and final canyon here was far up north, where the Submerged Castle had rested. That "castle" was now gone, replaced by a crevice that flowed with water, no doubt drowning any and all creatures who lived down there…

Now, that was over with, and the captain summoned 50 Pikmin to join him. They all slid down very quickly, perfectly willing, and loyal, never having needed to forgive Olimar for yesterday's losses, since they didn't even think it was his fault.

RED looked around. These were familiar surroundings. Some trees had been knocked down, but other than that, this was the Distant Spring as RED knew it. This was where most of Olimar's treasured belongings had been resting, and some of them RED had helped retrieve.

Captain Olimar didn't know where to start looking. He'd have been much more comfortable searching through this area with blue Pikmin, but they were still unaccounted for. But with red Pikmin, he could only go so many places. He chose to go north, searching where the Ultra-Bitter berries grew first and starting from there.

They were only a few yards from the crevice there when Olimar spotted two Fiery Blowhogs walking by it. Seeing their species was flame, he had no worries. He swarmed the first blowhog, which didn't even have time to react. It was dead within seconds of blowing a defensive fiery blast.

The second blowhog saw this and backed away, only to back up into the canyon and disappear. Olimar stood there wide-eyed as he heard its screams echo across the canyon for a few seconds, until hearing the very significant crash.

Moving forward, Olimar turned and entered the arena where an Armored Cannon Beetle had guarded his Bowsprit. More recently, it had been the location of the yellow Onion before it was found again. Olimar searched in there only to find a nightmare of creatures living there. There were two fiery Bulblax, three Orange Bulborbs, and a group of Dwarf Bulbears altogether in the arena. Olimar stood at the entrance and looked at his 50 Red Pikmin. There was no way he was risking this fight. Besides, what would he get in return? He was no longer fighting to retrieve the pieces of his ship or looking for treasure. There wasn't going to be anything here worth grabbing but their corpses, and the red Pikmin already had more than enough of their kind in the Onion.

He left that nightmare of creatures alone. Searching what was left of the Distant Spring that wasn't covered in water, he only found a Puffy Blowhog eager to attack. Olimar braced himself and felt himself get brushed several feet in one direction. By reflex, he called for the Pikmin to regroup. He gathered 48. He spun around, searching for the last two, only to see a Swooping Snitchbug had taken them both and planted them underground. He heard the blowhog inhale and blow, and found himself flying for a split second before landing hard on the ground. The Snitchbug had stolen yet another pair of red Pikmin.

RED landed hard on the ground and saw a second snitchbug dive forward, eager to catch it. RED rolled out of the way and jumped onto the bug at the last second, grabbing onto its back. The Snitchbug looked around and panicked, but RED climbed onto the bug and grabbed one of the antennae. The bug lost control of itself and fell to the ground. Fifteen idle red Pikmin waited there and saw a target to attack. The Snitchbug attempted to take off again, but RED was still grasping its left antennae.

The puffy blowhog exhaled again. Olimar lost his small group of 20 gathered Pikmin again, and RED and the Pikmin around him were blown off the snitchbug. The creature got back up and began to fly with its counterpart. Both snitchbugs attacked the first Pikmin they saw and tossed them into the ground.

Olimar looked everywhere he could; no Pikmin seemed to be in lethal positions. He just needed a strong group of soldiers to fight off the Puffy Blowhog. Then he'd deal with the two other bugs flying all around them.

RED heard Olimar's whistle and ran to him. 16 other Pikmin came to him as well. RED was thrown third onto the Puffy Blowhog. He landed on its snout and began to attack. The blowhog shook him and a few others off, but Olimar called them back and threw them again. The second time, RED landed on the creature's belly and resumed the assault. With the extra weight, the blowhog fell to the ground.

The captain took that short opportunity to call for whatever Pikmin were still available. He received 23 in total and tossed them onto the creature as well. The blowhog felt that nothing more could be done, stopped, and flew away, just like all the floating blowhogs did. Olimar had recently discovered that this was not their death, but rather their defense as they release a different pocket of hydrogen to escape death. But it had always worked.

The successful forty Pikmin returned to their veteran captain, who turned to face the two Swooping Snitchbugs, now responsible for the planting of ten remaining red Pikmin.

Both were caught easily, dragged to the ground, and swarmed instantly. Olimar used the pluckaphone, a device his suit still had on it, to pull out the victim Pikmin.

Olimar looked at his group. Very few of his soldiers were still flowers or buds. One Pikmin seemed to have even lost a few petals, but was still a flower! Olimar sighed, but was happy no one had died. He didn't even notice the Pikmin count had risen to 51.

----

Serbol had spent the morning breeding Pikmin. In the time that he had been here, he had discovered just how wide this burnt forest was. He had even named the place, the Withered Vale. He just hoped that the volcano, which dominated in the morning with a huge shadow, wouldn't plan on erupting anytime soon. It vibrated sometimes, and Serbol and the Pikmin turned to look at the great volcano as the ground shook, but nothing ever came out of the caldera.

It suddenly occurred to Serbol that maybe he could get the escape pod to function again and fly across the planet until he encountered his people again. But first he had to dig the pod out of the ground. According to one story Louie had staid before he fell into the canyon, he'd watched the Pikmin dig up a bit of treasure on his first day here. He thought about it and eventually commanded his newly bred army of seventy-five Pikmin to start digging. With their leaves, they began to chip away at the dirt around the small vessel.

During their work, Serbol climbed the tallest burnt tree he could find and got a better look at his surroundings. Like he had accurately predicted, the vale he was in was just as he had believed, withered and dead. The landscape was laid out quite simply. The volcano was on the far west, the burnt forest took up the middle of the vale, the canyon Louie had fallen into occupied the eastern side, and the north and south sides were more lush, where the volcano had not affected the plant life. Naturally Serbol wanted to venture in one of those directions, but he knew that if he met dangerous creatures in the burnt parts of the forest, there would no doubt be even more deadly monsters in the lush living parts, where the food chain most likely took effect.

The Pikmin finished their work and began to lift the pod. Serbol thought they were going to take it to the Onion at first, but then saw they were simply placing it upright. They laid it down gently so the rockets were on the ground and the bow was facing straight up. The hatch opened up and four mechanical legs extended to support the machine's weight. Serbol couldn't help but grin and flip. He turned to the Pikmin and smiled. He decided that he'd wait until nightfall, fly into the sky, and examine their position, and the forests north and south, then. But until then, they would continue defeating and gathering the creatures that lived here.

They had already searched the entire forest, the only places now were the volcano's perimeter and the canyon. Serbol chose to look by the volcano first. The trek wasn't too long, actually. Soon enough they exited the forest and found themselves looking up a huge hill leading up to a caldera. Serbol didn't plan on climbing up that mountain, it was crawling with wildlife, mostly made up of fiery creatures, dweevils, Bulblax, and blowhogs. But the creatures at the foot of the volcano were less deadly all together and seemed manageable for the novice commander of an alien army.

A pair of bizarre bugs patrolled nearby, screeching an even more bizarre call that surrounded them with a strangely pitched bumbling sound. These were known by Olimar as antennae beetles. Among them floated a Withering Blowhog, a Lesser Spotted Jellyfloat, and dozens of Unmarked Spectralids.

Louie's stories had included the Unmarked butterflies to be harmless, but the blowhog was closest and had to die first. The army of Pikmin followed their green-suited leader towards the orange balloon and waited until it looked away.

The Withering Blowhog never sensed a thing. But all of a sudden a sudden pain came out of nowhere. It turned around, and only saw a green life-form seemingly throwing punches. It didn't see anything else, but felt a pain like none other! It could sense that death was soon to come, and shook whatever was attacking it off. It released another pocket of helium and hydrogen, and flew off, desperate to survive.

The green Pikmin stopped fighting the beast and Serbol watched the blowhog blow off like a popped balloon. He thoroughly enjoyed watching it disappear. He called his Pikmin towards him, but only counted a total number of 45. He looked around for the missing thirty. He saw them following an antennae beetle loyally. He panicked, but felt a sudden anger boost inside him, and charged. He threw all his Pikmin at the beetle, and the thirty seemingly oblivious Pikmin following it did nothing to stop its death. The beetle died, and the Pikmin ran around in circles panicking, until they heard Serbol's whistle. They jumped at the familiar call at returned to his side.

The second antennae beetle died much easier, but Serbol had almost forgotten that there was another creature left to defeat, and they were the Spectralids. The Lesser Spotted Jellyfloat, while small compared to its Greater species counterpart, was able to do something almost none of the other species of wildlife could do on this planet. They could see the Green Pikmin as well as they could see the green leader, the other creatures, and all the wildlife here.

Serbol's Pikmin count diminished yet again. He turned to see the large blue jellyfloat hovering above him, sucking up his group of Pikmin! He called for a retreat, the Pikmin running to the side with him. Ten green Pikmin had been snatched. He threw his group of Pikmin at the jellyfish, knowing that a creature that size wouldn't stand a chance. Yet the Pikmin didn't even grab on to it! They just bounced right off and landed on the ground, confused.

GREEN was more than happy to fight any creature that posed a threat, but their leader Serbol must have been able to see something he couldn't. He was tossed into the air, towards what appeared to be ten of his Pikmin allies trapped in an invisible bubble of sorts. He bounced off of what seemed to be nothing and landed on the ground, still confused.

Serbol finally understood. Like most of the creatures here didn't seem to notice his green Pikmin, maybe with this jellyfloat, it worked the other way around! But… If they couldn't attack, then that jellyfloat was about to eat ten Pikmin and get away with it, if not continue and eat more! Of course it would, why not?

The ten Pikmin inside the jellyfloat were digested, a sight they could not see. They died quickly, and Serbol saw the beast enjoy its meal. The jellyfloat floated towards Serbol's Pikmin yet again, hungry for more. Serbol had no option but to retreat. His Pikmin ran right behind him, and the jellyfloat just as well.

GREEN was in the back of the group, and suddenly felt a strong wind slowly him down. He turned his large blue eyes up to see… nothing, but he was lifted into the air and felt like he had hit something soft and gooey. He and six other Pikmin felt like they were enclosed in a bubble they could not see. Needless to say, they panicked.

A shadow fell upon the landscape, one that traveled fast. It was the shadow of a flying bird, one the yellow Onion knew well.

The claws of the huge vulture-like bird came down and grabbed the Lesser Spotted Jellyfloat. Applying the slightest bit of pressure, the jellyfish popped. The seven Pikmin, GREEN included, fell to the ground, wet with "jelly" they couldn't see and very confused.

The vulture was surprised to find that nothing was in its claws now, but it didn't matter. There was probably something else to find around here… It came back for another round, and only saw Serbol, the Pikmin were invisible to it, and dove forward.

Serbol grabbed the first Pikmin he could, which happened to GREEN. As the huge vulture zoomed down, claws outstretched, Serbol tightened his grip and began calculating the bird's speed with the Pikmin's weight. When his work was ready, he waited for the perfect moment. Finally, he tossed Green and three more Pikmin into the air, who came up, and on their way down, they landed on the bird's head, which was strangely armored.

Serbol dove out of the way as the bird past him and the other Pikmin. He turned around to see that his Pikmin had been knocked over, but not harmed at all. He and his troops eyed the huge bird, hoping the 4 Pikmin did something.

GREEN and his three companions held onto the bird's armored head, desperate to survive. But after the bird slowed down and began to turn around, they started to attack. The bird shook in the unexpected pain, having not seen anything. It could feel the Pikmin and most definitely feel the pain they were inflicting on its face, armored as it may be, but couldn't see them.

The bird flapped its wings harder and stopped its flight path. It started to shake its head violently, and GREEN and one other Pikmin were thrown off. Both landed on the bird's back and threw their arms for something to grab onto. At the same time, both Pikmin caught a tail feather and held on tight.

The black bird still had two Pikmin on its head whacking it as hard as they possibly could. One of the Pikmin hit a certain point on its facial shell. The silver "armor" cracked and fell off. The much more tender face of the real vulture-bird was revealed, and it squawked in surprise. Invisible tiny foes were unheard of!

GREEN held on tighter, if that was possible, to the bird's tail feathers. The bird shook again, and one of the Pikmin on its face was flung off. GREEN heard it scream as it dropped. He reached for it, but the Pikmin was just out of his little arm's reach.

The second Pikmin already on the bird's tail did manage to hold onto the falling Pikmin, and they managed to grab onto each other's wrists. GREEN's blue eyes turned back to the sole Pikmin still on the giant bird's face.

That little Pikmin hit the vulture's eye, and it wailed in shock and forgot to start flapping for a moment. It dropped for only a few seconds, but it was enough. It fell just above the burnt forest, where the bird's unlikely predator, also its distant relative, could reach.

A Burrowing Snagret shot out of the burnt forest, uprooting the dead trees and shattering them, the black wood flying everywhere. The blue snake-bird looked up and could see the meal most Snagrets dreamed of. On the food chain, surprisingly, the Snagrets were the giant bird's primary predators, oddly enough.

Serbol stood with eyes widened as the Burrowing Snagret appeared out of the burnt forest and grabbed the giant bird by the neck. The sole Pikmin on the bird's head still held on tight, but GREEN and the three others had different ideas. They let go of the bird's feathers and dropped, all three grabbing hold of the closest tree.

Serbol and his Pikmin ran into the forest, hoping to save the four Pikmin in the mess. But the run would take a minute.

GREEN slid off the burnt tree and waited for his two brothers to do the same. Just seconds before they touched the rich soil, the giant bird hit the ground, inches away from them. The burnt trees crumbled instantly, and the Burrowing Snagret was ready to feast. But something wasn't right. It was feeling an unexpected pain on its head. The green and fourth Pikmin had landed on the Snagret's head and was hitting away at its life.

The snake-bird shook the Pikmin off, grabbed the unconscious vulture by the torso, and dragged it underground. The Snagret wouldn't be coming back up until it was hungry again, and the bird would be coming back up at all.

The four Pikmin stood in the newly made clearing in the torched trees. Serbol and the remaining green Pikmin finally reached them. Serbol called the four victorious Pikmin to join the group, the total being sixty-five. They turned around, going back for the bodies the Pikmin had earned.

----

Louie stumbled through the swamp he now called hell, only to walk into a vast lake, one that he had been in before. He looked around, noticing the familiar scenery. He walked north, until he spotted the red Onion and a ship he'd seen once before, the S.S. Dolphin. His eyes widened larger than normal. Olimar was here??? Oh no… If they found each other here, who knows what would happen to him!?! He backed away slowly, still his shock, but he didn't even look towards where he was backing to.

When he had arrived here, Captain Olimar did a scan to see how much damage the earthquakes had caused to the Distant Spring. He had detected one completely filled with water south by where the Smokey Progg egg had been before. Louie had backed up long enough to go straight past that site and walk right into the canyon. While completely filled with water, Louie and his suit weighed too much for him to swim. While slower than in air, Louie backed right into the canyon and fell all the way down.

Olimar, who was now returning the salvaged bodies to the red Onion, had no idea his previous counterpart was only so far away.

Louie's fall was slow, slow enough for him to land on his feet when he reached the bottom and not feel too much pain. His legs weren't broken, and the worst he had was a bruise. But he was still half a mile underwater, and he had wanted to be in space, not down in these alien lakes.

He jumped over another large boulder as he searched the bottom of the canyon for a way to get out. The fact that not even Water Dumples were down here scared him. Strangely, the pressure wasn't terrible, and so at least Wogpoles were able to survive down here, and they did. Several times a group of Wogpoles had swum past him, making him feel like he was in calm waters.

But what he laid eyes on right then cleared all regrets he had about being down here. Right in front of him, having been half a mile underwater this whole time stood the blue Onion.

----

Shacho walked down the surprisingly complex caves he and his army of 55 yellow Pikmin had walked into. He couldn't help but feel a little worried about finding whatever had dug these tunnels. But he was looking for another way out, some way that he could find the other survivors of the crash.

He turned to face another dead end. Whatever creatures had dug these tunnels hadn't finished at all. The tunnels were half complete, and therefore it was really quite easy to find out which ones not to go through.

But they had spend an hour down here. Finally, they found something. I tunnel that led up, and at the very end, Shacho could see just the faintest sign of light. He squinted and could tell that it was sunlight. His face beamed, more than ready to get out of these wretched caves.

But something in another tunnel that branched off from theirs had awakened. It spotted the yellow Pikmin moving in its territory and suddenly felt furious. It began to slither towards them.

Shacho heard a very distinct hissing grow from a whisper to a louder volume very quickly. He turned to see what appeared to be a giant cobra slithering behind him Pikmin. He screamed, but managed to call the yellow Pikmin away from the snake. The cobra attacked, barely missing a yellow Pikmin's foot. It looked into Shacho's eyes with pure hunger and a territorial emotion unlike others.

The yellow Pikmin weren't very happy about seeing this creature either, but were willing to follow their leader's orders. However, their orders were now to run like their leader.

The cobra struck again, this time scoring a Pikmin. The yellow soldier fell to the ground, the poison acting fast and paralyzing it. Shacho watched in horror as the snack quickly swallowed the poor Pikmin whole.

The cobra's beady black eyes turned back to stare into Shacho's terrified ones. The latter turned and ran, his Pikmin following. The cobra struck like lightning, barely missing and striking the small tunnel ground instead. It slithered up the confined spaces and struck again. One Pikmin was bitten and paralyzed, and a second was knocked over.

Both were consumed instantly. Shacho gritted his teeth as he heard them cry their last cries and disappear.

The snake struck one last time, this time hitting the low ceiling. The hit cracked the walls and the entire network of tunnels began to shake. Shacho didn't stop running, and neither did the Pikmin. They were only a few seconds away from the tunnel exit!

Too late. The tunnel floors just crumbled to nothing and the ceiling came down as well. The President and his 52 Pikmin fell all the way down, landing at the very bottom of a sublevel. The snake landed down there too, but not nearly as gently and was unconscious. Lastly, the Research Pod finally found a way to get into the tunnels and hovered just a few yards above Shacho and his Pikmin group. The president looked around. They were in a large arena, the snake curled up just a few yards away, but they weren't by the center either. He cautiously looked up, to the sides, and the ship searched for life forms underground, but nothing seemed to be there.

Out of nowhere, the far wall of the arena seemed to explode, but really it had just been broken into from the outside. The creature that marched out was one Shacho had seen before, but never hoped to see again.

The huge claw banged against the arena floor as the huge creature marched forward, slowly. Its large blue shell protected its entire body, minus its red face and tender underside. The Segmented Crawbster spotted life, lots of it, rolled into a ball and charged. Right behind Shacho and his pikmin, the snake regained consciousness and hissed at them. Shacho found himself at a choice between the huge titans he wasn't ready to make.

* * *

**Funny how I keep trying to write cliffhangers even though there's nothing really at stake to get people excited about. I didn't mention Shiyo yet, but I will. I guess the parts with Olimar, Louie, Serbol and Shacho were a little longer than I expected. Oh, well. I'll be back soon with more! And for that scene I said I looked forward to, that's up next. Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	6. Gill

**Do I still have to mention that I sadly don't own Pikmin or any of Nintendo's trademarks or logos or anything? All that wonderful copyright shtuff and rights reserved still goes to Nintendo. I'm really sorry this update took so much longer than all the others, but a trip out of town threw me off. I'm just glad I got this up. Slip-ups like this won't happen again!**

**Last chapter I left out the survivors of the crash (sounds like Lost), and Shiyo. I'll pick up there. Enjoy.**

* * *

The survivors of the crash had spent the day repairing bits of the cruiser and exploring the Valley of Repose. The pilots explored while the scientists repaired, and so most of the pilots soon learned of the White Pikmin's traits and abilities.

Then again, they all had access to Olimar's journals, which Shacho had provided before they arrived here. Through the journals and logs provided from the earlier adventures here, these survivors didn't have to field test the small white soldiers. They knew exactly what they did. They were fast, poisonous, immune to toxic chemicals on the planet, and were able to see through certain material.

The short exploration uncovered most of the snow-covered valley, and so far no casualties had occurred. But everyone took caution to avoid making too much noise, and they all kept their ears open, listening for something to come along, like another Man-at-Legs, or something worse.

The ship as a whole would obviously never fly again, but the scientists were trying to detach certain parts of the ship to suit as a shelter, some turrets as a defense, and other small but crucial features, like food and water. But the S.O.S. beacon was constructed first, and stood in the middle of the crash site like a satellite tower.

It didn't take long for the survivors to remember that the Pikmin had come from somewhere. They turned to that direction, where they had originally appeared, and began searching for signs of where they came from. A very thin trail was visible, but almost gone after a day in the snow and blizzards. But there was still something worth following.

A short trek of about ten minutes led them to the source of the white Pikmin, a relic not even Olimar knew existed. It was a white Onion!

----

Shiyo sat helplessly in the giant vulture, or Helmeroc's, clutches, as it flew over miles of terrain in minutes. He had given up struggling, the bird had an iron grip on him and wasn't about to let go.

They had flown ridiculously far from the Valley of Repose in a matter of minutes, or so it felt that way to him. They had flown over the lush terrain of the Forest of Hope and the Distant Spring, and the Forest Navel. They were now entering the Wistful Wild, and among the large trees, the Helmeroc's nest.

The bird let him go, and Shiyo suddenly fell to what he believed what was his death. Too short, his fall ended, and he found himself in the bird's nest. The huge bird flew away, ready to search for more food.

Shiyo turned to see a pair of giant eggs in front of him. He sighed in relief that they had not hatched yet. But then he looked down and across the nest's ground to see the shattered remains of a third egg. He winced and sighed annoyed at his own hopes. He whirled around to face a young Helmeroc chick, eying him curiously. Shiyo was terrified, and the chick was simply curious and hungry. At the same time, both ran. Shiyo ran towards the edge of the huge nest and the bird dove towards him. He leaped out of the beak's way, and both landed on the nest floor.

Shiyo got to his feet first, taking advantage of the short head start he'd just been given. The hatchling struggled slightly to get back on its feet while Shiyo ran to the edge of the nest an looked down. He instantly lost most of his determination, not sure which death he'd rather take, being eaten or being a very big splat on the ground far below.

The nest was very high on a dead tree, far enough that the creatures far below who even looked up there would have trouble seeing it as a nest. For that reason, Shiyo was exactly sure which path he'd rather go down on. But the chirping chick behind him was squawking and running towards him. At that second, he made his choice and leaped.

Almost instantly, he landed on his behind and began sliding down the thin tree branch. The bird hesitated and made a decision not to jump after him. Shiyo's short, short celebration was cut short as another beast waited for him just a few seconds below him.

A Saber Panthera had climbed up the tree looking for Shearwigs and Snitchbugs low enough to pounce on, but what luck to have a defenseless pilot just slide down the high branches! The tiger snarled hungrily, and Shiyo could only panic and try to change his course as the tiger began to quickly claw its way up the branch as he slid down.

Both moved at the same time. The Panthera opened its jaws and its teeth gleamed in the afternoon sun. Shiyo kicked blindly in hopes of landing a blow somewhere sensitive. He kicked the tiger's upper row of teeth and his speed knocked the tiger of its grip on the tree. Now both struggled to get a grip on the tree before they plunged to their deaths.

The Saber Panthera easily clawed its way back to safety, but slipped several times in the process. Shiyo turned to the side and plunged down to the ground far below, only to grab onto a tiny branch halfway down to break his fall.

The tiger snarled angrily and began to pace down the tree. About halfway down, three bright blasts came from the surface, tearing into the tree trunk and ripping out a large branch. Both Shiyo and the tiger jumped and looked down to see what had just entered the fray. A Gatling Groink stood below, aiming for the tiger. The latter roared and forgot all about Shiyo for a moment. It jumped down to another branch and passed its chance to snack on Shiyo. The Groink fired again, this time the blasts tearing off the huge branch Shiyo held onto. He landed on the ground, hard, barely conscious.

The Groink launched again, this time landing close enough to the tiger for it to be thrown back by the force of the explosions. It fired a fourth cluster, but the Panthera was already on its paws and past those blasts. It pounced onto the Gatling Groink's shielded face, not throwing it back but scratching the glass. Both glared at each other, not feeling heavy complex thoughts, but still feeling that bit of rivalry and urge to fight the other as their species' nature drove them to. Their battle was interrupted by a third creature's roar. A huge crash very far away still echoed towards their location. Both creatures took only a few seconds to decide that running and fighting another day would be better than risking their lives here. Both retreated. Shiyo, barely awake, only remembered the feeling of being lifted and the quiet but rhythmical chant of the Pikmin carrying something back home.

----

Louie had been working on getting the carcasses of the blue Pikmin back to the blue Onion, but for some reason he was only able to spawn 49 for a reason he couldn't understand.

Olimar, on the other hand, was trying to solve two mysteries at once. Not only would the red Onion not allow any more than the 51 Pikmin that he had out, but he didn't even remember bringing an extra Pikmin into the field. He could have sworn that he'd only called 50… Yes, he had only called 50! Where had this 51st Pikmin come from? And which one was it?

He looked among the red Pikmin. They all were red, yes, and all were following him. The difference between flowers and leaves and buds were normal casualties for the sort of fights they had just been through… Who was this extra soldier?

The red Pikmin that had joined the fight late, the one Olimar was looking for was best known as Gill. This red Pikmin had a flower stem, but a couple of the petals had fallen out. It was a wonder Gill had not been demoted to a bud, but he remained a flower. However he may be able to hide if turned to the side, he had a series of holes in his neck, courtesy of a Cloaking Burrow-nit battle. The wound wasn't lethal somehow, and it even came with a perk!

But that wasn't important now. From Olimar's point of view, there was still the fact that 49 Pikmin weren't allowed to exit the red Onion because there was another group of Pikmin out here in the Distant Spring somewhere.

Louie and his Pikmin group climbed to the end of the canyon and found themselves on the northern side of the Distant Spring. The blue-wearing pilot and his blue group of Pikmin looked around. These were familiar surroundings. BLUE(yet another original Pikmin) had always known the Distant Spring, later called the Perplexing Pool, to be a place where the blue Pikmin species had to work their hardest, since this place was so lush and moist and simply filled with water. But the only difference from those times and this one was that there were no enemies here. Had they all fled from the earthquake, or had something already beaten them to the prey?

That something, Olimar, started heading north, ready to examine the last bits of the Distant Spring that weren't covered in water. He had no idea Louie was up there, nor did Louie know heading south would lead him to the pilot he'd forgotten about and had spent the past few days avoiding.

----

Shacho couldn't have been in a worse situation. His Pikmin group had been barely able to avoid being smashed to bits by the Segmented Crawbster's claw or paralyzed by the giant snake's venom. Either way, he was certainly glad the two monsters weren't getting along.

The giant snake had been first to strike at a Pikmin and miss, barely cracking the giant crab's shell. The Crawbster shrieked angrily and waved its oversized claw. Shacho had read that these giant crabs were violent and furious by nature, something one unfortunate scientist had been wrong about before. But the giant crab swung its claw several times, each swing more devastating than the last, if that was possible. The snake, wary of what it was up against, kept its distance and moved around like the crab was a snake charmer.

The giant snake made its move between swings, widening its jaws and biting down on the crab's upper arm, where the giant claw and its torso met. The teeth penetrated the tough hard shell, barely, but just enough for the crab to take in some of the venom the serpent had.

The venom would take a little longer to take effect on something that big, but while it was still able to move, the Segmented Crawbster was going to go down fighting, not frozen by one bite. One quick and surprising slash and the snake was sent flying across the makeshift underground arena. The crash echoed and vibrated enough for bits of the ceiling to come down, something was not counting on.

YELLOW looked up at the last possible second to see boulders falling from the ceiling. The group of 52 yellow Pikmin was instantly diminished as 37 Pikmin were crushed. 15 Pikmin remained. YELLOW was one of them.

Shacho got up and shook of the pieces of the rocks that had fallen from above to face he remaining group of fifteen. The shock and hatred for not having been able to prevent those Pikmin deaths was the first thing that he felt. Then he felt cold, but that was probably because there was a shadow over him.

The crawbster was starting to lose feeling in its giant claw, but while it was still able to move, it was going to cause damage. The tiny group of Pikmin and their leader stood defenseless and scared, but right now, the crab was only concerned about the giant snake that was slithering towards it.

The giant claw came down inches from where the snake lay, and the latter struck, this time wrapping itself around the crab. It began to squeeze, hoping to take every last breath out of its opponent. The giant crab was losing sight and feeling everywhere, and could feel its shell slowly collapsing and snapping. This snake was going to win, it knew, but not without one last act.

The Segmented Crawbster tipped itself over, its huge body coming down on the serpent, trapping it if not killing it. Finally, the Crawbster was unable to move anymore, and could no longer breath. Within the minute, it would die.

The snake tried to unwrap itself, but the heavy crab was simply too big and immobile now. It could hardly move its head at all. And that would be a fatal factor.

Fifteen yellow Pikmin, YELLOW included, jumped onto the giant serpent's head and began their attack. The snake being weak, tired, and immobile ended the fight quickly. The snake died almost instantly. The Pikmin were called back to their leader, who began searching for a way out of this cave. Clearly nothing good could come from this place. He wondered if he was still under the Forest of Hope. The Research Pod shot down his hopes by telling him that the only way out, as far as its radar and sensors went, led them to an area previously uncharted…

----

That previously uncharted location was also the site of the green Onion. Serbol and his fully grown army of 100 Pikmin was ready to leave this Withered Vale. The escape pod was set, and the green Onion actually had a count of 108 Pikmin inside. While it wasn't sunset yet, Serbol found no reason to linger here any longer. He entered the pod, and ignited the engines. It was a miracle the pod was still able to fly, let alone be able to direct its course.

But he wouldn't question his blessings, as long as he had them. He felt a little guilty about leaving Louie's body down in the canyon (even though Louie wasn't dead, unbeknownst to Serbol), but he had to go somewhere if he was going to get back home.

The pod lifted off and the Onion followed. Serbol chose to head south, and so they left the Withered Vale behind them. South of them was a huge cliff, the forest remained lush even there, shrubbery growing on the canyon walls themselves. Serbol's readings detected massive amounts of wildlife down there. He knew it would be a jackpot to attack them, but what if there were more creatures that could see the green Pikmin, or creatures the Pikmin could not see?

Besides, his goal wasn't exactly to grow more Pikmin, but to get back to the rest of his people. The flight across the canyon took longer than he expected. It really was quite large. He wasn't aware that he was flying over the entire Forest Naval. But he'd learn about it soon enough.

Down below, rather close to a Beady Long Legs, a second Man-at-Legs was searching for prey. As of late, other bits of wildlife had been scarce, and some creatures had been taken by Helmerocs quite often. Because of the dramatic increase of the predators in the sky, the Man-at-Legs' had learned to look upwards just as well and down. And the first thing it spotted was Serbol's escape pod.

The pod's smooth flight path was suddenly penetrated and shaken, Serbol rattling through the pod like a ping pong ball. It only took a second for him to fall out cold, the pod still flying.

The Man-at-Legs fired at the flying metal object furiously, the gun never stopping to reload, cool off, or anything else. The pod itself finally reached a breaking point as one of the huge bullets finally penetrated the strong hull, the next three bullets traveling through the pod itself and coming out the other side. That puncture damaged the coolers, which quickly caused the engines to overheat and explode.

The green Onion swerved down to follow the smoking pod it knew as its leader. The escape pod was no longer flying, now it was tumbling down into the Forest Navel, the birthplace of the blue Pikmin, even if they weren't here now. The escape pod ejected three parachutes, breaking the fall greatly. The Onion slowed down, but the Man-at-Legs did not cease fire.

The next flurry of bullets flew by and bounced off the Onion's side, somehow not causing harm. Finally, the escape pod crashed into the dirt of the Forest Navel, now on the other side of a large mountain, finally out of the Man-at-Leg's sight. The green Onion extended its three legs and landed close to the pod, while largely intact, would not be flying again, and Serbol still. Outside, a pack of Saber Pantheras gathered around the mountain to "welcome" the newcomer.

----

The group of 23 survivors had all seen the White Onion. A quick glance at the records provided by Shacho's computer log proved to them that this white Onion was new and unknown to the captain and the president of Hocotate Freight. They began to breed the Pikmin, very excited to show the veterans what they had found.

But in the meantime, The Valley of Repose was chaotic. There was the movement of an Armored Cannon Beetle Larva or a Cloaking Burrow-Nit,and this place had been affected by the earthquakes and canyons dug deep into the sublevels. Far north, a huge flurry of Bulborb Larva slithered out of a crevice, already hunting for food. Among them the Sheargrubs that were stupid enough to fight back were eaten. Not too far away, a Fiery Bulblax found itself being assaulted by a Decorated Cannon Beetle. Not far away, a short battle between Water Dumples and a few Wollywogs ended after an Emperor Bulblax entered the fight. In short, the survivors really had to watch themselves if they were to survive.

But they weren't the only ones who'd found Pikmin to help them. Shiyo had just awakened in a cave, surrounded by 42 large Pikmin, all of which surrounding him, eager to follow his every command, as Pikmin always did. When Shiyo did finally get up, he found himself staring at purple Pikmin.

* * *

**Credit goes to Starlll for the creation of Gill the red Pikmin. He's the creator of that little guy, I'm just putting him in the story, but he offered the sprout, so here he is! Again, I apologize for being so late, I really didn't expect to go out of town for a few days, but it was enough to get me off schedule. Plus I just bought the Metroid Trilogy, and it's so much fun! I do get lost in the time, though. This chapter was my shortest, I just realized... By the way, school's starting and I'm moving, but the story will be updated again before too long.**


	7. Red vs Blue

**I don't own Pikmin or any of its trademarks, we know… That's all wonderful copyright shtuff.**

**Well, the three day weekend for me is over, and so is this ridiculous gap in updates. I must apologize for having failed to keep up my promise in frequent updates, this agenda for me is really a mess right now. But, you're not here to read about my life. Since you're here at all, please enjoy this hastily written chapter. Somehow the scene I've been so looking forward to writing, that one I kept mentioning, has managed to slip away from being written, but no more. Now, it's finally here!**

* * *

Olimar was admiring the skies for once. In all his time in space, he'd never seen an atmosphere affect the skies quite like on this planet. They were a calming blue slowly turning to brighter evening colors, although the sunset was still and hour or so away.

The 51 red Pikmin seemed to glow, something Olimar knew they could do at a much brighter rate. They were glowing faintly, but still clear if one looked close enough. They seemed to enjoy the company of each other and their leader, the absence of enemies bringing them to a peaceful state of mind.

Captain Olimar couldn't help but feel the same way. He felt calm, peaceful, even though he was on a planet covered in large deadly creatures, huge crevices, and the air itself was toxic atmosphere.

He could hear his family on the mic. agreeing with him. The planet was if fact peaceful when not under chaos. Especially here in the Distant Spring, where the water helped the land itself teem with life, plant and animal alike.

His family seemed to be alright with him in the deadly situation now, especially since he'd shown them himself just how capable he was.

Bang! Something ran into Olimar's side, knocking him over into the dirt. The red Pikmin jumped in surprise, and took a second to see what was attacking their leader.

It was Louie. He'd come out of nowhere and rammed into his former superior. The two landed on the ground hard, and Louie, on top, threw a punch. He landed his fist on Olimar's chest hard. Olimar winced and could hear his family freaking out, and simply that made him furious at his attacker. He shrugged off the punch and kicked Louie off.

The two got up and faced each other. Olimar's Pikmin regrouped behind him. Olimar's son shouted triumphantly as the red army faced Louie, who seemed to be defenseless. The captain himself had a glare in his eyes that told Louie he was not one to be messed with. Then Louie blew his own whistle.

The forty-nine blue Pikmin not too far off heard his command and ran to their leader. They grouped up behind the novice pilot, who faced Captain Olimar with a newfound arrogance.

All the shouting and advice Olimar's son shouted and all the cries for him to walk away from the fight from his wife and daughter were blankly ignored. He was almost ready to turn off the microphone, but no.

RED and Gill and their Pikmin "family" faced their newest enemy, an army of their own cousins. Blue Pikmin and red Pikmin were connected, but with their pilots being against each other, it seemed their nature to be gentle to one another was going to be put aside. BLUE wasn't any happier about it, but like all other 99 Pikmin here, he was ready to follow orders.

That might have been thought differently in Gill's case, but regardless, Louie instructed the attack. The blue Pikmin all charged forward. Captain Olimar commanded the Pikmin to intercept, a protective wall of red Pikmin stepping forth. The blue and red Pikmin collided and the fight began.

----

Shacho stepped out of the cave. He had now entered an area previously marked as the Withered Vale.

The yellow Pikmin looked tiny. They had just lost more than two thirds of their army, and 15 Pikmin wasn't going to be capable of doing much. It was a glum feeling.

Shacho looked up. The sun would be setting in an hour or so. They were stuck. The cave behind them wouldn't lead back to the Awakening Wood, and the Research Pod…

That was it! The Pod would get them back! It was empty, it could carry them all, and it was still working fine! It was golden, in Shacho's book, that meant perfect!

That would wait for just a second. The Research Pod approved of the plan and lowered, opening its hatch, just as a howl could be heard in the distance, somewhere in the burnt forest. Shacho's hair stood on end and each Pikmin stood tall, jumpy, and ready to run. Unlike when under Olimar's command, they would probably run under the President's orders.

The howls multiplied. Unbeknownst to Shacho were the Saber Panthera. These were not those exact same tigers, but a close relative. Their howls simply ate away at Shacho's sanity. In seconds he was ready to crack, turn, and run.

The Research Pod spat out a short little sound, reminding the President that it was waiting for them to enter. He jumped at the sound but then stepped forward.

Instantly as he took the first step in, it was thrown into the ground and Shacho had a second to get out of the way. The Pikmin stepped in and helped him up, but they wouldn't be touching the Research Pod. The Panthera relative was up on top, clawing at the propeller and gnashing its teeth at the Pikmin and their terrified leader.

Each Pikmin's stem, YELLOW's included, stood straight on end, just like Shacho's hair. The Panthera's features came into focus. While maintaining the same basic form of its cousin, this species of Panthera had less fur and more scales. The spinal features were still just as odd and spiked, and the scales gave it an almost metallic look. It gleamed in the sunset, almost like a chrome color, even though it really was completely organic.

Freakishly, it howled. This howl was different from the others, and Shacho soon understood why. More of the species emerged from the withered trees from behind them. The yellow Pikmin had a panicked look in their eye, seeing as they escape had been cut off, and any attempt to run would be ruined instantaneously.

The first Panthera slowly prowled off of the Research Pod, which was half buried in the ground now, and slowly came towards Shacho. It began to drool, somehow making it scarier for the President. No one noticed the odd sound in the background, somewhere behind the withered trees, of a Gatling Groink.

----

Shiyo got up and looked all around him. Everywhere around him, all he saw were Pikmin. Purple Pikmin! He'd found them!

He was so happy to see Pikmin with him he'd forgotten to look around at where he was. After a moment of celebration, he turned around to take a look. He was in a cave, at the very end of it. It wasn't too big, but it was enough to hold the 25 Purple Pikmin that had still survived. At the mouth of the cave he could hear roars and growls of many different species, and now saw that the Pikmin were hiding here to avoid being dinner. A quick glance at the entrance of the cave showed a Bulbear's feet, A Cannon Beetle Larva, and a Wollywog. It was no surprise the Pikmin were hiding.

Shiyo sat down and began to think. He wasn't confident he could command the purple Pikmin like the famous Captain Olimar could, but what choice did he have? If the Pikmin had been hiding here since Hocotate's last visit here, that meant that the creatures outside hadn't given up even after almost a week past! "Wow" was all Shiyo could say to himself as he heard another Cannon Beetle Larva's boulder smash against the cave mouth.

But his research on Purple Pikmin had been good! They were heavy and strong, and when landing on the ground, their impact even stunned enemies! Those three creatures out there were more than likely to be surprised by a sudden attack, let alone purple Pikmin assault! He gathered the Pikmin to his side and planned an attack…

Finally, he gathered his courage and ran. The Pikmin dashed behind him, slower but able to keep up for when he would throw them. The first Pikmin was thrown. It landed heavy on the ground, the Cannon Beetle and Spotty Bulbear stunned, motionless. But the Wollywog was not, and jumped. That purple Pikmin was the first to go. Shiyo felt furious and began tossing purple soldiers at the grey frog. It died in moments. But the shock had worn off and the other two monsters had awakened. The bulbear lunged down to take a bite, catching three purple Pikmin easily. The count of 21 Pikmin was minimized to 16 when the Cannon Beetle spat out another boulder. With the remaining Pikmin, Shiyo felt much less capable, but he did not give up. He turned back to the cave. The Cannon Beetle fired again, this time hitting the Bulbear and hurting it significantly. It walked forward and took the Cannon Beetle Larva in its mouth. The beetle screamed and wailed for a few seconds before being chewed and swallowed. It returned to face the Pikmin, but Shiyo was ready. He tossed all the Pikmin on top of it, scaring it stiff for more than enough time for the Pikmin to finish it off. It fell to the ground, pinning Shiyo's left leg. The Pikmin returned to him, and started lifting the defeated beast.

Suddenly, they all heard a Pikmin scream. One of the soldiers had been snatched by a Dwarf Bulbear! Shiyo hadn't realized that the dead Spotty Bulbear had brought younglings! But it had. There were 8 in total! 8 Dwarf Bulbears vs. 15 scattered Pikmin and a pilot unable to move, the odds were not good.

Half of the Pikmin were being devoured when one of the Bulbears grabbed Shiyo by the torso and pulled him loose. Seeing as he was too big for it to swallow in one bite, and he was still flailing to get free, the dwarf bulbear shook him, like a dog does its toy. Shiyo felt very dizzy very fast, and shouted as he tried to punch the creature to let him go.

PURPLE, who was simply one of the first red Pikmin ever to transform into a purple Pikmin in the Emergence Cave with Olimar and Louie, had survived this long and saw their new leader in danger. It charged forward and leaped, landing on the bulbear's back, knocking it over. PURPLE pulled its leader out and defeated the bulbear.

Shiyo turned around and was almost petrified with the feeling of disgrace and loss as the Pikmin were being eaten. He called with his whistle, the green light from his suit floating around, but only three purple Pikmin, PURPLE included, had survived, and there were still seven Dwarf Bulbears.

All three Pikmin were thrown into the air. All the Bulbears were stunned. All the Pikmin began to attack and defeat the shocked dwarves. Shiyo most definitely helped.

All of the Bulbears fell to the ground, dead. Shiyo jumped into the air, the three Pikmin just happy to be alive. Shiyo didn't even feel the ground shake twice!

But that would cost him. A demented roar filled the air, and the Wistful Wild itself. A freakish sound grew louder, and Shiyo was looking the wrong way. PURPLE turned around to see a dark enemy arrive and crush his two brothers. He ran, and screamed, but to no avail. PURPLE was crushed instantly. Shiyo whirled around only to see something riding on two solid stone cylinders, and didn't even have time to register what it was. He was crushed, and pushed into the ground as the two solid stone wheels rolled over him and continued on.

----

The 23 survivors had found a White Onion! It was simply astonishing! One of the pilots stepped forward, entering the white light beneath and calling forth all the Pikmin available. Including the Pikmin already with them, there were 178 in total.

Sunset was near, and seeing as they had been attacked by a Man-at-Legs during broad daylight the other day, they didn't want to find out what would come here at night. They called all the Pikmin to enter the Onion and returned to their crashed shuttle.

One of the few female pilots in the group turned back for one last look at the White Onion. She couldn't see it, but the recent blizzard winds had traveled long and far, bringing in a large group of certain creatures that weren't a part of this place. Sure, they were from this planet, but from very far away. Olimar's notes had also suggested that the Careening Dirigibugs were from another part of the planet, brought here by the wind currents. But now, the blizzard had blown in not a few, but twenty, of the creatures, and they were just out of Cehla, the female pilot's, sight.

----

Serbol kicked open the broken hatch. His suit was undamaged but his life support was limited to a 23 days. He had a time limit!!! It wasn't something he was looking forward to having in common with the legendary Captain Olimar, and right now, he wasn't sure how he was going to survive just this day!

The Man-at-Legs was marching towards him, loud and clanky, just like the rest of the machines did. The green Onion was sitting rather close to the pod, and Serbol dashed to it and called out 100 Pikmin. All green Pikmin slid out of the Onion and joined his side.

The Man-at-Legs leaped rather clumsily over a small canyon and landed on the other side, a little too fast, and couldn't slow down fast enough before ramming straight into the Green Onion. Both tipped over and landed only a few inches from another canyon ledge. The Pikmin and Serbol all froze to see what would happen next, if one of the large legged objects would fall.

The Man-at-Legs attempted to get up, but the green Onion had one of its organic legs pinned down. Serbol took the chance and ordered for an attack. The Green Pikmin charged forward and began to strike at every point possible.

The giant legged spider could indeed see the green Pikmin where "flawed" organic eyes could not. The machine gun inside its ice-cold metallic hull longed to be released, and the locks were disengaged. The machine gun extended past the steam and the red light took aim at the attacking Pikmin.

Serbol could see the machine gun extending and didn't have to be an expert on this planet to realize that this would not turn out well. He charged forward, but he was too late. The machine gun opened fire, spewing bullets like a faucet does water. Pikmin heard it and saw their last moments, one by one. But Serbol didn't stop running. He leaped past the bullets and under the metallic leg, still attempting to get back up. He entered the Man-at-Leg's hull, standing inches from the machine gun's barrel. His suit was turning red, and although the heat wouldn't hurt him, it was safe to say he shouldn't spend too much time here. But he looked into the metal spider's hull. The technology was different and quite rusted, but he could still tell how things worked. He found what he was looking for and pulled at the cables. Nothing happened. The Man-at-Legs shook even harder, attempting to get him out. But he kept trying. He reached down and grabbed a rock about the size of his fist and began whacking at the top of the hull. If Pikmin leaves could damage this thing, so could a good-sized rock.

He was in! A hole just his size was made and he crawled in. With his yellow antennae light, he could make out where the organic legs bound to the machinery. He could also see the head of the Dweevil itself, literally bound with the machine's wires. He didn't know which had control, the Dweevil or the machinery, but he would take it for himself now. He pulled a red cable and kicked his way into the top. He appeared at the very top of the mecha's round head, pulled one more cable. The Man-at-Legs stopped flailing. The machine had been turned off.

----

Olimar dove to the right, avoiding a blue Pikmin who'd been thrown towards his by who he used to consider his colleague and friend. Louie had been merciless during the whole fight and hadn't said a word, but Olimar was trying to knock some sense into his enemy.

Olimar's family was shouting like crazy, but the Captain wasn't listening to them. He was focusing on the situation at hand.

RED ducked from a blue Pikmin blow and whacked him back. The blue Pikmin was hit, dazed, and fell to the ground. His body shrank and then disappeared. RED turned around and was tackled by yet another blue Pikmin. This time, both plunged into the mud, and both looked like black Pikmin in seconds. The fight didn't last long, more red Pikmin came to help and could distinguish who was who by the absence of nose or gills.

Gill was uncomfortably close to the water, and with three blue Pikmin close by, his odds at survival were low. But then again, that hole in his throat would help.

The three Pikmin tackled, the first two missing. The third landed, but both stood on their feet, Gill grabbing the blue Pikmin's stem and twisting it so the Pikmin fell to the ground. Gill whacked him until the blue Pikmin disappeared. The other two Pikmin grabbed him and threw him into the water.

Gill reached the bottom, but did not drown. The hole in his throat, the Cloaking Burrow-Nit accident he'd been through, and somehow given him a set of makeshift gills. He could breathe underwater.

The Blue Pikmin were not expected this, nor were they expecting Gill to jump right back out of the water and whack them both to death. Gill moved on.

BLUE had already thrown three red Pikmin into the water, and was moving on for his fourth. By luck, he met RED.

RED and BLUE, while they may look like any other red or blue Pikmin, recognized each other. The same way a red Pikmin could distinguish another red Pikmin, the recognition occurred between species of Pikmin as well. Both Pikmin knew that they had been there for Olimar's first adventure, the recovery to pay off the debt, and the search for Louie. They had been there for the Emperor Bulblax, the Titan Dweevil, the Burrowing Snagrets, and had stood aside each other.

It was a brother vs. brother feeling, but the whistles from Louie and Olimar to keep fighting told them to ignore that. The fight between the two began.

Olimar threw another blue Pikmin off his helmet. He did not kill it, he made sure of it. Louie, on the other hand, tossed any unlucky red Pikmin he met into the water. It was cruel, which was why Olimar tackled him into the water as well.

A Wogpole jumped at their arrival and swam away. A Bumbling Snitchbug had been waiting to snatch them but did not dare touch the water.

Olimar held his enemy down with one foot on Louie's chest. He looked into Louie's eyes and saw nothing but anger. He looked deeper. Surely there must be something down there, some reason Louie was so volatile.

He saw only a lust for control, whether for redemption, greed, or superiority, he could not tell. All he knew was that this fight between species had to stop, and now.

Louie thought otherwise. He kicked Olimar right between the legs. The Captain fell down, curled up in pain, his family groaning and now swearing that Louie would one day die.

The blue pilot got up and walked out of the water. But what he saw, he did not like. An orange arachnid was coming this way!

It was Beady Long Legs, he knew that for sure! He panicked and those few seconds gave Olimar all the time he needed. The Captain jumped into the air, grabbed Louie, and tossed into back into the water. Just behind them, two Yellow Wollywogs had arrived, searching for the commotion source. With Louie the first thing in sight, they jumped to crush him. The pilot scrambled to his feet and ran for his life.

Olimar took that time to call the red Pikmin back. RED and Gill had both survived, and a total count of his company revealed that 37 Pikmin remained. He'd lost 14 soldiers, and he'd keep that number in mind, so one day Louie could count just how many lives his actions cost, and how many more he put in danger.

The Beady Long Legs had arrived, and began smashing at anything in sight. The red Pikmin had left, but the blue Pikmin were still there, awaiting orders. That was a nice change to strike. The long orange legs came down hard, all four quickly smashing more than half of what was left. Louie watched in horror as he blew his whistle.

Olimar returned to the Dolphin. The Guard Satellite was floating inches from the ship, as it had detected the Beady Long Legs nearby. But it would be time for shooting later. Right now, Olimar had found red seeds spewing from the Onion. He assumed it was part of a Pikmin-kill-Pikmin chain, and he was correct. 14 seeds had arrived, returning the count to 51.

He looked back one last time to see that the Beady Long Legs was traveling slower now. Louie had probably retreated to wherever his camp was. Olimar took one last look at the sunset from the ground before allowing all the Pikmin to enter.

Gill did not enter the Onion. He merely walked off, searching for the shelter he'd been hiding in before Olimar had come along. The pilot noticed this, but left it for further analyzing later. Right now, he wanted to leave this place.

Louie and his surviving Pikmin 16 in all, BLUE included, returned to the blue Onion. Louie plucked the Pikmin seeds there and allowed them all to return to their Onion. He looked for an underwater cave and took refuge there. His last thoughts before drifting asleep had to do with a plot to draw Olimar into a trap, and make sure he didn't have those Pikmin to save his life this time……

----

Cehla entered the large shell of the crashed shuttle eyeing some maps of the Valley of Repose. If the logs were correct, Captain Olimar had been here once before. The ship's scanners were working well enough to detect ion trails in the sky. This unique concentration belonged to the Hocotate Freight Golden Ship, which meant that Olimar had blasted off from here to travel to the other bits of the world. If they could get something to fly right, maybe they could find the rest of the scattered pilots, Olimar, Shacho, Louie, and enough junk to use to go back home…

Shiyo lay in the dirt, alive, but surrounded by a crushed trail where Purple Pikmin had once stood. No longer did they stand now, they were gone. Purple Pikmin had just met extinction at his hand…

Serbol looked at the Man-at-Legs he had shut down himself. The green Pikmin had returned to their Onion, but he had a feeling he could use this empty spider shell for something more than just harvesting…

Shacho stood in the middle of the night, surrounded by Panthera, accompanied by only 15 Yellow Pikmin, but a Gatling Groink had spotted them and had opened its cannon. It fired at the Panthera. The pack turned to face the metallic cannon-fish, giving Shacho and his Pikmin just enough time to escape, climb up a tree, and stay there for the night.

Louie was fast asleep underwater, and Olimar bid his family goodnight and typed in his journal.

_Captain Olimar's Ship Log:_

_Day 4_

_Has it really only been four days that I've been here? Wow. No, wait, I've been here five. I just simply didn't write a journal for my first day… Or did I? I can't think straight, Louie has just waged war upon me and my red Pikmin, with blue Pikmin! The nerve to attack me with soldiers I have found! How dare anyone abuse this planet for their own purposes!_

_Wait, didn't I do that for my company? Grr, I've been abusing these Pikmin and wasting their lives for purposes and matters that have nothing to do with them at all! How thoughtless, why can't the Pikmin just go along their way here, without us ruining this planet's life?_

_I don't recall any new life forms anymore, I'm still furious. I think I'll just get to bed and begin tomorrow raising enough force to find everyone else on this planet. The Dolphin detects massive amounts of radiation and metallic scraps all over the planet. I should probably begin my search for them now. I believe the Wistful Wild is a good place to start, that place is always full of chaos and rewards._

_Louie, you've not seen the end of me…_

**Remember, all credit for Gill goes to Starlll. Anyway, sorry if the chapter wasn't satisfying, I believe I could have done better. Anyway, my next chapter can't be promised soon, I can, however, say that this isn't a story to be forgotten and left behind. This story will see all the way to the end, as long as you guys like it. Thanks for reading!**

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	8. The Distant Spring

**Wow, school's harder than I thought. Writing this chapter took WAY TOO LONG!!! But it's here now, I hope you're still here to read it! That is, if you like this story.**

**As I reach these higher chapters of the story, I start to figure out exactly how it's going to end, roughly. All I have to do is type the story and post it here. Weekends seem to be the only time I can get more than a page done at a time, but hopefully these later chapters can measure up to what you guys hoped, and what I had hoped for it to turn out as.**

**First, I apologize, my last chapter seemed to be nothing but trash to me. I promise to do better! Let me start here. (Wow, some songs can be so inspirational) If any of you like to skim(We all do), if you actually do follow the story and would rather not be confused to why Green Pikmin do what they do in the later chapters, I recommend you do not skim through Serbol's small section. It's short, but read it if you may. Ok, now enjoy!**

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Captain Olimar touched down on the surface of the Distant Spring. He was bright an early, as he had planned. His dedication to pull out every Pikmin available before Louie had the chance succeeded. He called out 99 red Pikmin, the 100th, Gill, would be somewhere around here. Hopefully that rebel Pikmin would show up before too long.

Gill was not where he usually was, near the Ultra-Bitter berry plants. No, this morning an iridescent flint beetle had shown up scavenging for food, and Gill, like any other Pikmin, simply couldn't resist going after it.

He rounded the tree, still chasing the beetle, when it entered water. Gill ran into the water and had to get used to the abnormal effect water had on him. It was against his Pikmin nature to enter water, he was resistant to fire. The cold ocean was not where he was normally supposed to be, but now that it wasn't life threatening, what Pikmin couldn't resist a Flint Beetle??

He followed the beetle north to the point where the Submerged Castle had once been. Almost instantly, the beetle was gone. Something from the crevice shot out, or rather, two tentacles did, wrapped around the beetle, and dragged it down into the submerged canyon. Gill stopped moving. That wasn't expected at all!

What were the odds that Louie, hoping to find something on his own that blue Pikmin would not, came by not too far away? The novice pilot wasn't looking for Pikmin and therefore completely missed Gill, but it didn't work the other way around. Gill charged.

----

The sun rose, the bright yellow light shining across the Withered Vale. Even the burnt dead trees looked somewhat majestic in the morning shade of light. It was a sight no one would forget, if they took the time to see it. It really was beautiful.

The Panthera trying to snatch Shacho and his fifteen yellow Pikmin out of one burnt tree were not beautiful, however. They were vicious, ugly, and their teeth were covered in saliva.

Barely two yards away, the metallic remains of a Gatling Groink lay in the dirt, gnawed on but left to rot. The pack of Panthera had simply torn the Groink apart and ate anything edible. The ammunition and the metallic head plate was all that remained to remind them that the Groink had even existed.

The Ship's Research Pod was still stuck in the dirt, the propeller slowly moving but not nearly enough to even cut someone, let alone fly. Meanwhile, Shacho and his Pikmin freaked out at the top of the tree as Panthera attempted to climb the tree, only being kicked down or slipping as they peeled what remained of the bark with their claws.

YELLOW nearly slid off of his perch among three other yellow Pikmin on one higher branch. They had no trouble sitting up here, but their leader was having a harder time getting up, and the Panthera down below could almost grab him.

The President was no longer happy that he'd come along on this journey. He kicked another Panthera's teeth and tried to climb up the tree to get to a higher branch.

He looked up to see a most unexpected yet welcome sight. YELLOW and the other Pikmin on the higher branches were forming a chain of themselves, grabbing each other's legs and hanging down from the branch, just to where Shacho could reach. He beamed and readied his jump. Just as he jumped and grabbed the bottom Pikmin's wrists, a Panthera clawed at where he'd stood, and its weight broke the branch, taking it down in a hurry. The Panthera landed on its feet, and growled yet again.

The yellow Pikmin pulled their leader up to the higher branches. YELLOW looked down to see the pack of Panthera circling the tree, hoping to find a way up. Every few seconds one would gnash its teeth and hiss, a sight that still terrified Shacho even up there.

The golden Research Pod had had enough to time to study the Panthera. The systems selected a name "Arrow Panthera", for its sleek body and sharp yet smaller teeth, compared to its Saber Panthera cousin.

Regardless, the pod had enough time to study the Arrow Panthera and how they worked, hunted, and so on. Biological studies had been finished, for now, and the pod now had an idea on how to get rid of these monsters.

The ship began to hum, a low hum that was faint and barely audible. The pitch began to change, the sound rising a little higher almost until no Hocotate native would be able to hear it. When the pitch was just right, the volume began to increase. Finally, the Pikmin and the Panthera could hear it. Even with those huge ears, the yellow Pikmin were not affected by the noise, but for the Panthera, the affect was entirely different.

The monsters began by stopping what they were doing and trying to find out where the noise was coming from. When they got closer to the pod, the volume increased even more. The pack howled in pain, the pitch being just right to practically torture them. They howled and finally ran away. But what drew away one creature would most likely draw forth another.

The noise traveled through the Withered Vale, slowly getting through to every creature. Bulborbs woke up and simply winced. Small dweevils became extremely attracted to the sound, but had no idea where it came from. Cannon Beetles couldn't hear it at all. The two single Jellyfloats there shrieked and flew far, far away. Snagrets of all species underground simply felt the ground shake as one other creature came closer and closer to the sound.

This large monster heard the sound and was drawn to it, almost irresistibly. Unfortunately, it was not a happy feeling. This monster only wanted to smash whatever was making that noise. Slowly, it moved it's four huge legs over the burnt trees, stomping closer and closer.

Shacho and his Pikmin leaped down from the tree and instantly began digging the pod out from the ground. It had stopped making the high-pitched sound, but the creature was still coming.

The President was the first to hear it. He heard a groaning wail, low and almost sinister. He looked up and to the right to see a monster he knew well, and would never forget.

The Titan Dweevil, while unarmed and defenseless, never failed to look terrifying with its multi-colored eyes and two set of mandibles. Shacho jumped out of his skin, YELLOW and the other yellow Pikmin that had been there for the epic fight in the Dream Den widened their eyes and was almost frozen stiff. The Research Pod suddenly realized that the Flare Cannon, Comedy Bomb, Shock Therapist, and Monster Pump, the original Titan Dweevil's original weapons, were still in its compartments. That gave another simple escape plan.

The Flare Cannon was ejected, perfectly positioned under the pod, still underground. Instantly, it fired one simple blast, which was more than enough to push it straight out of the ground. The fire blast knocked Shacho back and set three yellow Pikmin on fire, but the president had no time to save them. The Titan Dweevil had brought one of its beefy legs down inches from him and crushed a fourth Pikmin. The three yellow Pikmin burned, something that would stick to Shacho's memory for a long, long time. There was no guilty feeling quite like that…

YELLOW heard his leader's whistle and came to attention along with the other eleven surviving Pikmin. Meanwhile the Research Pod began to distract the giant spider while the Pikmin and President made their escape. It began flying around its head, spewing out fire from its underside with the Flare Cannon.

The Titan Dweevil grabbed the Research Pod and tried to chew it. The pod responded by whirling its propeller at ridiculous speeds and cutting one of the mandibles off. The Dweevil took the pod and tossed it into the air, where it disappeared behind the burnt trees.

Shacho and his Pikmin were running in that direction, but the Titan Dweevil wasn't done yet. It charged, tearing the burnt trees out of the ground and tossing them into the air, a hungry look in its eye.

----

Serbol lay on his back, pulling wires and seeing sparks fly as he tampered with the inner workings of the deceased Man-at-Legs's hull. Outside, Green Pikmin did their best to reassemble the beast's mechanical leg and outer shell.

Serbol, having been a mechanic at one point in his life, knew what he was doing, even with this astoundingly different technology. He could get the basic idea of how the Dweevil burrowed inside the machinery and the mechanical behemoth worked to become such a menacing team. After he learned what powered what, and how they never ran out of power(courtesy of a cord using the living dweevil's stamina to power the electricity), he followed a red cable to how the machine gun inside worked. Overheat was prevented by the bottom half of the hull opening up, resulting in a steam that later let even room temperature air be extremely refreshing. He was interested to notice that the machine gun itself was not controlled, but rather aimed and fired on its own.

That could be modified, after he found out how to bypass the machine's electronic will to be functional without a controller. The Dweevil would be easy to get passed, all he had to do was outsmart the aggressive machine.

Outside, the green Pikmin did their best to patch up the damage they had created. Because of their unique eyes, not every little flaw would be repaired.

The truth behind the green Pikmin species' ability to appear invisible to most wildlife on this planet was biologically explainable. It was actually quite simple.

Green Pikmin possessed those huge blue eyes, much related to the huge red eyes their cousin White Pikmin had. White Pikmin's eyes could help them see past thin surfaces of solid material, dirt being an easy example. Green Pikmin eyes had a quality much different than any other Pikmin.

Those large blue eyes gave off an invisible hue of an ultra low blue. While naturally harmless and unnoticeable to the Pikmin, the blue hue that surrounded the green Pikmin proved to be invisible to most of the biological creatures on the Distant Planet. This meant that they saw straight through the hue and the green Pikmin itself.

This effect obviously did work on those not native to the Distant Planet, meaning it had no affect on Hocotate people, and it most certainly did not fool mechanical eyes. However, this had one simple bittersweet affect as well. The Jellyfloats were not likely the only creatures with a similar hue of some sort, and for whatever reason, Jellyfloats were a perfect example of creature that Green Pikmin were incapable of seeing because of that hue that cloaks them from all other life.

This had similar tiny side effects on certain alloys and ions, but that was all else. It was unclear if other creatures had a hue like this that hid them from green Pikmin, but whatever creature that produced some sort of light would be a logical guess.

Serbol had finished. He plugged in one last wire, and the lights came back on. He lay motionless, praying that the machine would not get back up and attack. To his great relief, it stood motionless. He grinned and turned it back off. Now he could get to work on the machine gun, anything else, and make some room in the crowded hull.

----

Cehla was first to exit the makeshift shelters of her team. She had a quick breakfast, stretched, and made sure her suit was on perfectly before flicking on her white antennae light and walking into the Valley of Repose.

She had to admit, as much as she loved the snow and the natural appearance of this area, she was getting tired of sitting here each day. She would have loved to explore, examine some of the other territories mentioned in Olimar's official reports and Shacho's documents. She was no member of Hocotate Freight, but she was a pilot nonetheless. She could probably help build a shuttle of some sort, the scientists had spent so much time creating an SOS beacon they probably hadn't even thought of searching the planet itself.

Then again, now she remembered how she'd gotten here in the first place…

She preferred not to dwell on that subject. She was here, she would have to get past what happened in the past.

She strolled towards the White Onion, which had relocated overnight to their camp. She called out ten Pikmin. That was all she was permitted to command for now, according to the rest of the team's new set of rules to prevent Pikmin loss.

She and the Pikmin saw no action all morning. Two hours past as the rest of the team woke and got back to work. She was one of the ten pilots scheduled to stand watch for the first half of the day. She had not imagined herself standing watch with ten aliens when she joined on this trip, but at least the Pikmin were cute enough to admire as they mingled to each other silently.

She was so fascinated trying to understand if they were communicating or just simply relaxing in each other's company she didn't notice the black-green cloud approaching from the west.

The white Pikmin did, though. Their change in attitude did save Cehla and get her to look up. The cloud surprised her, but a closer look showed that it wasn't a cloud at all. As soon as she recognized the figures floating towards her, she sounded the alarm in her helmet. The call went out to all pilots in the camp.

A huge swarm of Careening Dirigibugs had been blown away from their own homeland, a completely different environment, as Olimar's reports and studies showed to be a believed logical theory. Everything Cehla and her team knew about this planet was from Olimar's reports and the Golden Ship's database copies they had received. Cehla was a smart girl, and she knew most of the creatures she'd seen in the database by heart now. After all, her commanding officer Serbol had ordered her to.

Nobody was exactly excited to face a horde of Careening Dirigibugs that were feeling a bit territorial at the moment, but it wasn't like they had a choice right now…

Ten pilots ran to face them, each commanding ten Pikmin. Cehla was one of these leaders, while WHITE was in a completely different group. The Dirigibugs weren't moving to attack, but they were simply traveling to whatever place seemed most homely. And since the freighter's hull was made of metal, that was somewhere they'd want to check out.

Cehla waited for the leader of the group to shout a command. After what felt like a year, he did. Cehla tossed the first white and the Pikmin landed perfectly on the nearest Dirigibug's face. The creature didn't even have a bomb-rock, and both fell to the ground. Cehla's nine other Pikmin charged, keeping the beast down and quickly defeated it.

All around them, the other nine groups of pilots tossed their Pikmin, some going for one bug at a time, while, others tossed one Pikmin at each bug to get more bugs down at once. But before anyone got too cocky or confident, the tide began to turn.

One Careening Dirigibug finally remembered that it could fight back, and created a bomb out of its saliva. In three seconds, the first bomb-rock was on the snow, and its countdown had already started. The pilots called their Pikmin back just before the explosion, and snow shot up into the air, burying a couple downed bugs, Pikmin, and a pilot.

Cehla made a daring and clever move by running close to a bug with a bomb-rock in hand. As she saw the beast toss the bomb towards her, threw one Pikmin at the bug itself. The beast fell and Cehla called the Pikmin back and retreated. As the Dirigibug tried to get airborne again, the bomb went off, killing it instantly.

Every pilot had a Pikmin chart on their helmet, telling them how many Pikmin were with them, how many Pikmin were in the field, and how many Pikmin existed as far as their computers knew. The number of Pikmin under their command changed whenever they attacked, but the overall count of the Pikmin in the field was now 89. eleven white Pikmin had already died. Cehla checked her count. She hadn't lost any yet, which made her a little more confident.

Careening Dirigibugs were only fighting in self-defense, but now they were started to get aggressive. They were doing more than just trying to get through, now they were going after specific groups of Pikmin and their pilots with bombs in hand, which was more than enough to frighten half the pilots in the fray.

Cehla called for three other pilots to join with her. Their total Pikmin force was 35 out of what should have been 40. Regardless, they lined up and began throwing all their Pikmin in an orderly but efficient fashion, knocking down at least seven Dirigibugs within seconds. Whatever bugs the Pikmin weren't able to swarm, the pilots jumped onto. Within a short amount of time, all the victim bugs were dead.

The bomb-rock explosions weren't naturally healthy to the snowy environment, as with every explosion, snow and ice shot up from the ground and came down, some bits of ice being threatening! Sure, the dirigibugs were eating just as much of the snow and ice as the Pikmin and their pilots, but it was still bad. Cehla, for one, was more than ready to get out of the fight. But that wouldn't happen for a while. This fight wasn't even halfway over…

----

Olimar spent the day breeding red Pikmin and chatting with his family, reassuring them that he would always keep Pikmin by his side until Louie was captured or defeated. But he couldn't get over the fact that he could only have 99 Pikmin with him at a time. Where was Gill?

Gill was being a huge pain in the neck to Louie. All day Louie had tried a sneaky attempt to get Gill killed. His first idea was to drown the Pikmin, but Gill proved to be invincible to water, which frightened and shocked Louie at the same time. Since when was a red Pikmin amphibious? Well, then again, what on this planet was normal?

A dwarf red bulborb had been seen and then Louie figured he'd get the Pikmin eaten. Gill was preoccupied for a moment and Louie thought he was free. Two minutes later Gill was back and continued the assault, having easily killed the bulborb.

Louie had never wished that Beady Long Legs would come, but the giant spider had been here yesterday, and for once, Louie wished the spider would show up and crush this really ANNOYING Pikmin. But no, the spider didn't come.

----

Shacho and his eleven Pikmin were still running, searching for the Research Pod. That pod had the only offense possible against this beast, the treasures, like the Flare Cannon and the Shock Therapist, and more. But the Titan Dweevil was relentless.

Serbol and his Pikmin stopped working. It was only midday, but both Serbol's motion trackers and the Man-at-Legs' unique hostile alarm had detected some other creature was on its way. He turned on the green antennae light and called all the green leaf Pikmin to his side, more than ready to fight.

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**Yeah, not the best ending at all, but I couldn't think of anything else to do that wouldn't go into the next chapter. Sorry for the long, LONG delay, school's been very busy for me, but at least the good results mean I'll get more time to work on this story. I also hope to create a Metroid story in celebration of the Metroid Trilogy, which I recently completed. Anyway, thanks for reading! Review if you think I need improvement or for any other reason, but I thank you for just reading!**


	9. Pilots

**Once upon a time I had so much time on my hands it was hard for me not to update this story three times a week. I had everything written down a week before I posted it! Then, school started, and I'm finding it harder and harder to keep up with the promise to finish this story. But I will finish it! If I wasn't going to, then I probably wouldn't be here writing right now.**

**Notice: Who here likes Yellow Pikmin? Who here skims most of the text when they read? If you're either, or both, and the story somewhat matters, read the end of Shacho's section, just after this Olimar/Louie scene.**

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Olimar guided his 99 Pikmin across the Distant Spring, searching for Louie and the Blue Onion, wherever he was. Olimar looked at his chart again. Yep, Gill, wherever he was, was still in the Distant Spring and obviously avoiding attention, for he was nowhere to be found.

Louie could say the complete opposite, and would have given anything to get Gill away! Gill was on his helmet, whacking away endlessly, ruthlessly attempting to down his target! Louie looked at his suit stats, his suit was taking damage, slowly, obviously not a threat to him yet, but this was just annoying!!

Louie ran out of the water and grabbed Gill by the stem and tossed him off, throwing him several yards away. Louie turned around and ran towards a group of trees, most of them stumps, where he remembered a Fiery Bulblax sleeping there during his last adventure here with Captain Olimar.

Louie's throw was just far enough to be significant. Olimar's radar picked up the red Pikmin on the edge of the screen, just enough to grab his attention. Of course, Gill disappeared a second later as he got up and ran after Louie again, but Olimar was still curious as to what it was. Intrigued, he turned around and headed in that direction.

The novice pilot jumped off the tiny cliff and landed in the tiny space that the sleeping Fiery Bulblax called home. He turned around. Yes, Gill was coming back. He waited, and then extended his arm. He grabbed Gill's stem and tossed it towards the Bulblax and then climbed back up the tiny cliff, intending to leave the red Pikmin alone with the fiery Bulblax in the tiny arena.

Gill landed on the creature's flaming back and slipped off again. But it was enough to wake the monster up. The Bulblax stopped snoring and got up to its feet, turned around, and eyed the lone red Pikmin with the same hunger almost every creature had nowadays.

Louie got up to the top of the cliff wall, and looked back with satisfaction. The red Pikmin would be eaten in no time! He turned around to walk away triumphantly, but before he could even look in the right direction, something slammed into him and knocked him back into the arena. When he opened his eyes again, he found a red Pikmin on his chest. This one was RED, and 98 more Pikmin were jumping down to join RED. Last was Captain Olimar himself. As they landed in the arena, both the army of Pikmin and their leader looked at the giant Bulblax with terror.

Olimar's family screamed loud enough for even a Pikmin to hear it through the captain's helmet. Olimar was scared stiff for a split second, and the red Pikmin, who hardly remembered to be afraid, instantly began to attack. Louie tossed RED off of him and dashed towards the arena wall again, only to feel Olimar grab his ankle and pull him back down. Olimar was furious now, and wanted Louie to feel that hatred. He pulled Louie down and swung him around twice before letting him go, sliding him straight into the Bulbax's feet. The monster nearly tripped over him, but got its balance back just in time to take a huge bite, snatching seven red Pikmin from the ground. Gill and RED bumped into each other. They looked at their leader. Olimar was a bit busy gaining control of the chaos and keeping Louie in the arena, so they jumped onto the Bulblax's back on their own. Many of their "brothers" followed. It was quite a sight to see.

----

Shacho and his eleven Pikmin saw a golden gleam in the dirt, and knew it was the Research Pod. It shined in the sunset light to be extremely attracting. Any Breadbug, if they were to see it, would head for it first. Luckily none were nearby.

They reached the pod, leaning on one side in the dirt. While it could get up at anytime, it decided that the Flare Cannon was not the best weapon for now, seeing as last time three Pikmin burned. Instead, since the Titan Dweevil was slowly stomping through the trees and getting close and closer, the Pod ejected about fifteen metallic spheres into a seven yard radius around the pod, the president, and the Pikmin.

Shacho distinctly remembers what the spheres were for and got down. He knew the Pikmin wouldn't be affected, but he might be. The Shock Therapist fired a huge blast of electricity through the spheres, a huge protective barrier of energy and power flowing around them. The yellow Pikmin were in no danger, either, which went well.

While the electricity burned the already burnt trees and destroyed them, it also kept the Titan Dweevil at bay. When it tried to walk across, the energy latched onto it's legs, which held traces of alloy and other metals, possibly radiation or maybe even scrap metal that it had come across in some point in its life. It was possible even the shuttle crash that happened a few days ago was the cause of this radiation.

Whatever the cause was, it certainly helped. Each time, the Dweevil roared in pain and agony, only to try again and again.

While this was a rather nice effect, it did happen to make a very bright light in the burnt forest. This included those in the sky. Instantly, three Helmeroc birds, all of which searching for a meal, were suddenly interested in the large circle of yellow light. They dove down to investigate.

Shacho looked around, realizing that this barrier of electricity would only last so long, and once it was gone, not only would a giant spider be attacking, but huge birds would be as well! He called the Yellow Pikmin and ran to the edge of the electric wall, waiting for the last possible moment of protection before the power went out and they were vulnerable again.

The instant it did, Shacho took off, the Pikmin not far behind. One Helmeroc got lucky enough to extend its talons and snatch one Pikmin from the back of the group. It infuriated Shacho, but there was nothing he could do about it now…

YELLOW, running like the devil was behind him(which, in a technical form, could be true, since the Titan Dweevil was their biggest problem on the planet), looked behind him to see the second Helmeroc reach for him. He ducked, receiving only a scratch on the back of his neck.

As he ducked, he noticed something off in the distance just a bit ahead of them. Were those…

They were! Shacho had spotted them too and was running for them. YELLOW couldn't wait to use these things again!

The third Helmeroc swooped down but missed. As it flew around to take another pass, it lost sight of the prey. So did the other birds. One of them flew low enough that the Titan Dweevil snatched it out of the air and held it tight until something snapped. It then dropped the corpse, where eventually Sheargrubs would get to it if a Burrowing or Pileated Snagret didn't get it first. The food chain on this planet was pretty stable, if not bizarre.

Regardless, the Pikmin and shacho had just disappeared. The Research Pod was taking the liberty to fly low below the tree branches, just out of sight, while keeping contact with Shacho. The ten Pikmin had found odd objects and were ready to use them. Shacho tossed YELLOW out first.

The yellow Pikmin landed in the open, when the two remaining Helmeroc birds spotted it instantly. They raced each other to eat him, the first one winning. Instantly, YELLOW tossed the bomb-rock he held towards the bird's face.

BANG!!! The bird was dead. The second bird squawked and panicked at the loud noise, but had no way of escaping. Shacho let two more Pikmin attack, tossing the bomb-rocks at its wing and lower torso. The bird fell to the ground.

The Titan Dweevil was not afraid, and stepped over the two dead birds. Two bomb-rocks were tossed towards it, but neither one reached its face. It stomped onto the ground, inches for YELLOW. Shacho called all the Pikmin back to him. It was a bad idea. The Titan Dweevil stepped right in the middle of group, landing on one certain Pikmin that was carrying a bomb-rock. The large shelled leg came down on the Pikmin, crushing the bomb-rock. But the chemical reaction inside the bomb had already been triggered. There was less than a split second for Shacho, YELLOW, and the other Pikmin to realize what was about to happen. BANG!!!

----

Serbol had 100 Green Pikmin at his side and a Man-at-Legs that just needed a pilot. He felt prepared for whatever was coming. But whatever it was, it wasn't moving too fast. It was moving slow enough for Serbol to have time to get into the Man-at-Leg's body, turn it on, and still get the whistle working so that the Pikmin knew that this machine was still their leader!

By the time they were organized, though, the creature, a Puffstool, and arrived. It wasn't running towards them! It was running from something, but Serbol didn't realize that, and he commanded the Pikmin to attack.

On the trip to the Distant Planet, Serbol was in charge. This was his operation he was running here, and while it hadn't gone the way he'd planned it, he had memorized the Ship's catalogs and Shacho memory docs on the planet itself, its terrain, and the wildlife. He'd never read Olimar's original logs, which was the only document that had information on the Puffstool. So, he was new to the subject.

As it happened with Olimar the first time, the Puffstool tipped over. The Pikmin seemed to have the upper hand. For some odd reason, the Puffstool could see these green Pikmin. They could see it, too, though, so it was an even fight.

The Puffstool jumped onto its feet again. It breathed in a large amount of oxygen, and then exhaled, over fifty of the Pikmin attacking being within the range of the exhaled poison.

----

Another explosion blew snow everywhere as Cehla's fellow pilots and their Pikmin fought as hard as they possibly could against the confused and irritated Dirigibugs. Cehla could feel the snow start to freeze through her suit, and it was getting soaked enough that it was getting harder and harder to move properly.

The communications suddenly went to static, and no one could communicate with each other. The link was disrupted, but it didn't stop Cehla from fighting. She grabbed WHITE by the stem and tossed him up to yet another bug, bringing it down and then swarmed it with the remaining eight Pikmin she had under her command. Her original total of ten had been diminished by only one, which made her happier than most of the pilots here, some of them having been in the middle of the battle and lost most of their Pikmin.

Another explosion blast WHITE away from the battle. When he landed in the snow, a few yards from the outside of the battle, he was dazed and disoriented, but his distinct red eyes, seeing straight through the thin layers of snow, spotted something buried only a few feet away. Seeing as the Pikmin heard no whistle or form of leadership anywhere near, it began to dig the object up.

The static disruption every pilot heard was a bomb-rock blowing up the SOS antennae the scientists had built. A Careening Dirigibug had made it through the mob of destruction and assaulted the delicate camp, blowing up the large antennae first. The scientists took cover, but two of them ran for a weapon.

Most ships now carried a Nova Blaster much like the one on Olimar's Dolphin. A few of the models had survived the crash largely intact. Two of them fired a minimal power blast at the Dirigibug. Instantly, the bug was gone, disintegrated, destroyed.

BANG!!! Another explosion followed, killing seventeen white Pikmin in one shot. The horror the pilots went through was just awful. Cehla saw one of her fellow pilots go flying, no doubt unconscious. His assigned group of Pikmin were probably dead or joined with another pilot.

But already the Pikmin death rate was higher than the amount of Pikmin still in the fight. As much as the scientists tried, they couldn't fire at the mob without using too much energy, which would kill the pilots and the Pikmin as well. Even if they could pinpoint the exact amount of power, they only had a limited amount of electricity. They had no functioning Eternal Fuel Dynamo, and so were running on the limited power they still had.

It didn't matter. WHITE was still digging, but he had uncovered not one object, but two! The first was a metal box, most likely important to Cehla, but the second object was something bigger, and natural to the Distant Planet. Now it would be a race to see who would get away from it faster, the Pikmin and their pilots, or the Careening Dirigibugs.

----

Shiyo did something much unexpected; he woke up.

He remembered a large round stone cylinder rolling over him, killing the purple Pikmin he'd just taken control of, and now they were dead. He was simply astonished that he wasn't! He looked around. His helmet was covered in dust. The feeling of resistance and not being able to move told him he was underground. He looked at his stats to see that he was barely three inches below the surface. It was almost sunset, and in the Wistful Wild, he already found out that it wouldn't be safe, no matter where he went.

He painfully pulled his left arm out from beneath the dirt. He had absolutely no idea how long he'd been out, but all he cared about now was surviving.

He reached the air above his arm. He could feel his glove move around without resistance. He cleared away the dirt on his helmet before digging out his other arm and working from there.

In a matter of moments, he was out. His green antennae light was flickering, and he could hardly move without stumbling, but at least he could breathe normally, nothing was broken, and he had a chance to survive.

He turned around and tripped over something. The impact stung him, and as he lifted his leg to see what it was, he was a purple stem. His eyes widened with disbelief as his mind suddenly flashed back to a small section of Captain Olimar's notes, which he had reviewed on the shuttle before the crash. The famous Captain had stated that in fierce battles or moments that cost many Pikmin their lives, they left behind seeds. Shacho and Louie had never reported this event, for whatever reason, but it had clearly happened here!

He yanked the seed out, the sole Pikmin that would be a memorial of the incident that happened here landed on its feet. This could now be considered the new PURPLE.

PURPLE had all the memories of the previous purple Pikmin who had dropped this particular seed. For whatever reason no other purple Pikmin had managed to get a seed through, so this was a rather impressive, if not frightening, feeling to be the only Purple Pikmin in existence.

Shiyo grabbed the Pikmin and hugged it, an alien motion through PURPLE's eyes. Shiyo couldn't be happier to know that he hadn't completely extinguished a Pikmin species. He silently vowed to himself that nothing would happen to this purple Pikmin.

His first test showed up right away. A Saber Panthera showed up instantly and posed up on a fallen branch, and showed its teeth. It howled, hoping to call forward more of its kind, even though it would also attract other species.

The Panthera came down and slowly pawed its way towards Shiyo and his sole Pikmin, both slowly backing away. The Panther bent its hind legs and was in the middle of a jump when something slammed into it from the side. It was some sort of scorpion, as big as the panthera itself, three times wider and longer that Shiyo. It was dark red in color, its long shelled tail high up, ready to come down at any time.

The scorpion and the Panthera were rolling across the dirt, both attacking whenever possible, but otherwise completely forgetting about Shiyo and his one soldier. The green-armored pilot turned around and began to run.

They ran into a "garden" of flowers, but instantly PURPLE saw two huge problems. One was a Cloaking Burrow-nit, and second was the particular flower Shiyo was standing on.

Shiyo was tossed upwards several yards as a Creeping Chrysanthemum appeared from beneath him. The monster focused on the purple Pikmin and came down to take a bite. But by some random luck, the Cloaking Burrow-nit got in the way and was chewed instead. PURPLE ran towards his leader, who had landed a few feet away.

Both Shiyo and PURPLE ran for their lives as the Cloaking Burrow-nit was eaten and swallowed. The Creeping Chrysanthemum lost sight of the pilot and his sole Pikmin, and so returned back to its hunting ground and reformed into a flower.

Shiyo rounded a corner of a tree stump and found himself just about to step off a cliff. The bottom was completely engulfed by darkness, but PURPLE wasn't so quick to stop. He nearly ran over the ledge, and Shiyo grabbed his stem to stop him. They hung there for a moment as gravity fought against Shiyo's balance. Gravity won. Both plunged into the dark abyss previous labeled by Captain Olimar as the Cavern of Chaos.

* * *

**It's definitely not as long as I would have like for this update, but it's better than keeping you waiting while I keep putting it off! If you like Yellow pikmin, sorry, but just relax. I didn't get as far towards Serbol's chapter this time, but I'll get to it. Don't worry, this story's not being thrown away, I just have so much to do, it's getting hard to catch up with my deadline. Oh, well. Thanks for reading! Review if you wish to tell me where to improve or what needs work!**


	10. War and war

**Ok, my last chapter wasn't nearly as lengthy or story-bound as I would have liked it. Now, if I had stuck to my schedule, you would have been able to read this last update, but sadly, I'm late. Good news is that it's here now. So… Enjoy!**

**Oh, I almost forgot. I don't own Pikmin or any of the titles related to Nintendo.**

* * *

RED landed on the ground with a loud thud. Above him, a weakened Fiery Bulblax was shaking all Pikmin off, or at least trying to, as 100 red Pikmin swarmed it by surprise. Gill was here too, hanging on to the bulblax's left eye as it tried to shake him off. It was unsuccessful, and Gill continued to attack, causing a significant amount of harm. Well, all red Pikmin were strong and caused the most damage, arguably beaten by Purple Pikmin. But, they were not here right now to take their strength back.

Right next to them, Captain Olimar and his former-counterpart Louie were having the fight for their lives, against each other! Olimar was currently taking control, lifting Louie off the ground and throwing another punch into his chest. He then whirled him around and tossed him towards the ground, letting the blue-suited pilot lay there for a moment. Olimar's eyes glowed red, and it wasn't just because of the Fiery Bulblax's reflection. He was angry. Louie had caused him a lot of pain and Pikmin death, and each day Olimar was more and more certain that the previous incident with the Titan Dweevil had been rigged.

Louie had yet to admit to this, if the theory was true or not, but the pilot was now simply trying to put thoughts together and fight back.

Olimar's family was shouting, not only for him to focus on the giant flaming monster next to him, but to not kill Louie. A death here would lead to imprisonment there, but that was something they worried about. Olimar was not worried about prison any more than Louie was worried about cookies at the moment.

But he got his chance. Louie rolled over and threw a hard kick into Olimar's midsection(They both knew a punch at their helmet would not do anything. Each helmet was designed to take massive damage without cracking.). Olimar flew backwards, landing on his back on the ground in seconds. Louie jumped. His enemy rolled to the side moments before Louie came down where he'd been lying a second ago. Olimar rolled to his feet and grew more and more infuriated. Both stared into each other's blazing eyes a second more before resuming their physical duel.

Both charged at the same time, but Olimar had much more experience fighting. When they were only a few feet away, Olimar jumped, kicking his legs in front of him and he spun several times. His kick landed on Louie's helmet, which knocked the victim down. Olimar landed on his feet and grabbed Louie's suit antennae. He yanked as hard as he could, but the line did not snap. Instead Louie was pulled backwards violently.

Another flurry of red Pikmin was thrown off their giant adversary. The Bulblax had managed to eat several Pikmin. Had Olimar stopped to look at the Pikmin count, he'd have seen a total of 83 Pikmin still remaining. The Pikmin numbers may have been diminishing, but the bulblax's strength was fading much, much faster. RED jumped back on to the beast and threw his stem past the raging fire and at the beast's hide, causing significant damage, as all the Pikmin were doing.

Finally the beast fell over. It was not dead, but had lost its balance. As it tipped over on its right, Pikmin beneath it jumped out of the way, Pikmin on its back gripped onto something for support. Olimar dove out of the way and barely felt the monster's hide brush against his ankle. As he rolled back to his feet, Gill got back up and jumped back on. RED had managed to hang on the entire time. The battle between both species continued.

Finally, Louie got up and did his own stylish kick, jumping off one foot and throwing the other straight into Olimar's chest. As the captain keeled over, Louie grabbed him by the helmet and thrust him towards the angry Bulblax. The monster opened its mouth, barely missing the dazed captain, instead chomping on a group of red Pikmin. The total count was now at 78.

Finally, after that final meal, the Bulblax was finished. RED and Gill and the other 76 red Pikmin there let go of the giant monster and relaxed. Their first instinct was to lift the monster, and twenty of them instantly stopped to do so, even though they were in an enclosed space. They really had nowhere to go.

Olimar got back up to his feet once again and looked around. He spotted Louie scrambling out of the enclosed arena. The Captain blew his whistle as loud as he possibly could and all surviving Pikmin ran to follow him as he bolted after his former friend.

Louie's antenna was breaking, already blowing a few sparks out of its blue tip, but it didn't matter right now. He was running as fast as he possibly could to cover or shelter of some sort. He noticed that the Pikmin count was lower, if he could just make it to the blue onion and get help…

No, that was not a good idea. He would then reveal to Olimar just where his current "base" was. Even in his state, that was a waste of the advantage.

He could hear an army of footsteps behind him, he knew Olimar and his Pikmin were right behind him. Olimar reached back and grabbed the first Pikmin he could reach, and tossed it. The Pikmin landed right next to Louie and began chasing. Olimar threw another one. This one wasn't as close. He grabbed RED for the third throw. He tossed him, and the sprout landed right on his target. Louie landed with a thud, and RED rolled off of him as the other two soldiers reached him and began to peg him first.

He responded by grabbing the two of them, banging them together, and tossing them into the water nearby. He then ran into the water for safety. But had he thought of the past, he would have remembered that Gill could still chase him. He forgot.

Olimar dismissed his army and dove into the water to save the two drowning reds. He brought them back to shore and then watched Gill attack the blue pilot. He was ready to run in to join, but then turned around and ran the other way.

Louie and Gill were both thrown off their feet and landed on the ground. They looked up, out of the water, and towards the sky only to see the Beady Long Legs from a few days ago standing over them. Louie got to his feet and jumped from one of the legs crashing down near him. He rolled to avoid the second. Gill stood there aimless, confused and a bit worried. Olimar called him to safety, but it wouldn't last long. But for now, Olimar still had to worry about his main objective. He grabbed Louie and tossed him out of the water. They began yet another duel, the Beady Long Legs pounding after them.

----

Shacho opened his eyes, slowly, painfully. The first thing he realized was that he was looking at a metal ceiling. The second was that he was lying down perfectly straight. There was a faint hum nearby…

He got up to find himself on a metal floor. He was in a tiny room, barely big enough to contain him. It took him a moment to understand that he was in the Research Pod.

A small lid came off of one side of the coned wall. Behind it was a tv monitor, showing the last recorded footage of the event the Research Pod had seen. There it showed Shacho and his team of Yellow Pikmin, some of them carrying Bomb Rocks, the Titan Dweevil behind them, the two dead Helmeroc birds, the gathering, and the Titan Dweevil stepping into the middle of the group, crushing a bomb-rock. The instant reaction was a huge explosion. The camera entered a moment of brief static, and then showed what happened next.

The Titan Dweevil was shrieking. The camera couldn't get a good look at its leg, there was still smoke, but the Pod entered the cloud and found Shacho lying on the ground, his helmet cracked and his suit ruined. His life support pack was showering sparks. The president was only seconds from breathing in the planet's toxic oxygen. The pod engulfed the president, filtered the inside's air with breathable chemicals, and began repairing the suit.

That was the story the Research Pod had recorded and logged. Shacho was lucky to be alive. But all that went through the president's mind was the Pikmin. All of them, YELLOW, the ones carrying the bomb-rocks, they were alive and following his every order, and that one moment killed them all. It was…. Awful. There was just not a feeling of guilt like it. It was near impossible to explain. It WAS impossible to explain…

The Research Pod stayed in the air, and would eventually call for the rest of the ship to come to their location. The Yellow Onion would follow. Shacho recalled the thought he'd had when he first entered that cave that started this entire adventure. 55 Pikmin… "Sure, he'd survive." Now they were all dead, and he'd barely survived himself, and for what? He'd discovered absolutely nothing.

----

Serbol was in a nightmare. Half of his Pikmin had mutated! No, they had changed. No, wait…. What on earth had just happened? One minute the Puffstool was running for its life and now all of a sudden half the Pikmin were defending it?

GREEN was in a nightmare. Half of his brothers, the Pikmin he'd fought side by side with for the past few days, who were his brother, literally!, were attacking him and his remaining brothers. They were confused, but at least it wasn't hard to know who to attack. The mutated Pikmin had changed to an ugly purple color and had mushrooms on their heads as opposed to the natural budding flowers or leaves the healthy Pikmin had.

GREEN was more than happy to see the mushroom Pikmin he'd hit head on fall to the ground, lay for a moment, and then spring back up, slowly returning to normal. The mushroom had disappeared and the Pikmin was regaining its color fast! This was working!

But the battle between Pikmin kept the Puffstool unchallenged. Not on Serbol's watch! He pulled a lever he'd placed in the hull to ignite the firing mechanism. The bottom half of the hull came down and the cannon barrel lowered and took aim. The tiny little targeting light was on the puffstool's "head" when it fired. The gunshots echoed across the entire Forest Navel. When it finally ended, the Puffstool was dead. There was no doubt about it.

GREEN whacked yet another Pikmin into his sense. Slowly, the tide of the battle was turning. 50 healthy Pikmin turned into 60, which increased their strength and diminished the poisoned Pikmin's forces by even more even faster, until the last of the enemies had been defeated. It was over.

No, it wasn't. Without warning, the Man-at-Legs' machine gun whirled around to where the Puffstool had come from. From the darkness rose a Smokey Progg, dashing at full speed. Serbol recalled reading about this mutant, also another monster only mentioned in Olimar's journals. This was thought to be a malformed Mamuta, but there was no real proof supporting this theory. Although it made sense.

It didn't matter. The monster was poisonous and was nothing but poison and danger. The Man-at-Legs fired so many bullets that Serbol was knocked out of the machine. The bullets did nothing but dissolve as they got close.

The monster got closer to the Pikmin. Serbol had the wind knocked out of him and couldn't blow his whistle as the thing got closer to them all. He grew angrier, but he saw that the Smokey Progg could see the green Pikmin! That was not good at all!

The beast ran right through the majority of the Pikmin army, no doubt killing them all, and stomped down on Serbol with one foreleg. It looked down at him with its glowing blue eyes. It rumbled, no doubt its way of growling. It raised its other foreleg, bringing it down for the kill. Serbol saw his suit take massive damage. It could only take so much more. One more hit like that and Serbol would die!

GREEN wouldn't let that happen, nor would any of the Pikmin! Serbol thought they were dead, but no way! They leaped onto the monster, running straight through the poison that leaked from its body. Where all other Pikmin would have failed without a chance, green Pikmin stood easily! They ran through the monster's acidic trail and began eating away at the monster's life. With 100 Pikmin doing the work, Serbol watched in awe as the Smokey Progg, a monster he'd learned to fear, was defeated in seconds.

GREEN leaped down and returned to his leader's side. All the others did the same. Serbol looked at them in awe. They were immune to its effects! Whatever poisonous chemical that was in the Smokey Progg that killed all known Pikmin in an instant, these Pikmin were immune to!

----

Cehla, all her fellow pilots, and all of their Pikmin, plus the Careening Dirigibugs, were heading one direction, away from the new player in the fight.

WHITE had discovered a beast commonly referred to but unseen, the Burrowing Snarrow. The monster was much longer than its cousins, and had tan feathers. The monster exploded out of the snow without warning, and began eating away at Pikmin and careening dirigbugs without giving them a change to fight back! The monster was going to win this fight, an Cehla had called for them to retreat. No one had to be told twice.

Cehla found herself near the White onion. She grabbed WHITE and any other Pikmin she could see and commanded that they return to their onion, where they would be safe. She then returned to the camp, where all the other pilots had gone to for refuge. It was the only place with any sort of defense, as the nova blasters positioned as turrets there were still working, firing at careening dirigibugs getting too close to them.

The blasts disintegrated the monsters quickly, but they knew that their shots might not do so much on the Snarrow. Its hide was obviously much thicker, and it was much bigger, which meant more power would be needed. One of the turret operators flipped a knob, bringing more power to the nova blaster. A much brighter shot could shoot and travel even after destroying three dirigibugs. It would probably kill the snarrow in one hit.

The shot was fired, and the snarrow, a mouthful of dirigibugs, easily spotted the shot just before it passed by, slamming into a mountain, rock, snow, and ice flying out of their original resting place, scattering across the Valley of Repose. The energy was mere inches from burning the monster's hide when it passed, but it was enough to scare the beast off. The monster swallowed its prey and returned home, disappearing into the snow.

The remaining dirigibugs had fled, being smart to avoid the turrets and the burrowing snarrow. Cehla waited until silence had returned before finally letting out a sigh of relief. Every other pilot and scientist beside her had done the same.

One of the scientists stopped to see what had remained of the mountain they had just blown to pieces. After the snow and dust had settled, the visor in his helmet zoomed in to what had remained of the mountain's base. What he found was something that sparked memory of Shacho's database logs of this planet during the most recent adventure here.

The scientist, Cehla, and 4 other pilots ran to examine what they had found. What remained of a once-red flag was in the debris, and right next to it was a specific hole in the ground, obviously not simply a Snagret or snarrow's home. No, this looked exactly like the images of the subterranean areas Captain Olimar and President Shacho of Hocotate Freight had explored, along with Private Louie of the same company.

According to the geographic records, this sublevel was known as the Frontier Cavern, a deadly cave known best for its overrunning population of the bulborb family. But it didn't really matter at the moment. Cehla returned to what WHITE had dug up before the snarrow's untimely appearance, a metal box, Serbol's orders, to be precise.

Before the incident of the crash here, Serbol had been the commander in charge. He had sent orders to most of the pilots here with instructions, but these commands never reached their destinations, due to the crash. Whatever he had wanted them to do, the memory of the orders was inside that box. Cehla brought it to a scientist, who plugged it into a surviving monitor, and all 23 survivors of the crash listened to what their leader had to say.

----

Shiyo landed on a Careening Dirigibug, one of the residents of the Cavern of Chaos's sublevel 1. PURPLE landed a few feet away. Shiyo and the dirigibug both landed on the metal floor hard, but the green pilot didn't stop to finish the fight. He called PURPLE and ran. This place was not the way Shacho's records had described it to be. The walls were collapsed, partly, and there was an extremely large amount of twisted and broken metal here, which was once the solid floor. Clearly the earthquakes that had attacked this planet had done a great deal of damage in this part of the world.

Shiyo and PURPLE ran a large distance, until he found a way out of the cave. He didn't know how deep down he was (but Olimar's records would say it was sublevel 5), but he found a geyser on the ground, leading straight to the surface, and he was going to get out of here.

A certain species of bulborb had other ideas. The monster stomped forward and took a bite, tearing off Shiyo's green antenna. He panicked but managed to turn around and see a creature he'd never expected to see, a mother bulbmin, with 20 children following.

----

Squash! Another group of red Pikmin was crushed by the Beady Long Legs' metallic legs. In all of the lush Distant Spring, or when it was called the Perplexing Pool, never did Olimar remember losing so many Pikmin in one day.

Louie stumbled as every crash of the Long Legs threw him off balance again and again. Olimar was facing similar difficulties, and his family was screaming for him to get out of there and to safety. But he wasn't listening to them. He would not let Louie get away. He leaped into the air as another leg came down hard, crushing another Pikmin. He tackled Louie and the two landed hard on the ground.

RED dove again, Beady Long Legs stomping where he had been just a second ago. The crash vibrated through the ground and knocked over anyone nearby, and the pounds could be heard all over the Distant Spring, even underground…

Gill was thrown back Once Again. He landed next to RED, who was staring at the orange mechanical monster's legs with a plan in his mind. They could climb the legs of their onion, wooden logs up a huge distance, and the berry plants, why not a Long Legs?

RED ran for the nearest metal leg and began to climb. Beady didn't notice. Gill and several other red Pikmin followed. Soon every living Pikmin, 52 in total, were scaling Beady Long Legs. From a bird's eye view, it looked like a bunch of tiny ants were assaulting a large spider.

As all the Pikmin were leg to the head of the machine, Olimar and Louie were having their own problems as giant metal feet came down by them and they were also having their own death match. Louie's antenna sparked again, setting fire to Olimar's left arm. The Captain heard his family scream again, even though the suit wasn't going to burn for very long. It still had the upgrades it had received from the previous adventure. The fire would spread across his suit and die out quickly, but while he was still on fire, although he felt no pain, he knew he looked intimidating.

As the fire began to spread all over his suit for the few seconds that it would, he made sure Louie could see him. Imagining Louie's impression, he charged.

Louie, personally, just saw a Captain who was literally on fire charging to kill him, which was something he'd rather pass on. Louie turned around and tried to run, but was pinned down. Olimar grabbed him by the antenna, which was still showering sparks every now and again, and pulled him up. By some luck, the antenna didn't break, but that was the least of Louie's worries. It was also Olimar's last focus.

RED, Gill, and the other 50 Pikmin showered down to the ground as the Beady Long Legs stopped functioning and collapsed. Pieces of the orange metal came raining down, one large pipe coming between Olimar and Louie. As all Long Legs family members, the pieces of Beady Long Legs slowly disintegrated as the pieces came down. RED watched the shell casing of the head crumble to dust as it landed in the soft soil. All of the Pikmin, idle and waiting for orders, easily drew their attention to their flaming leader and his losing opponent. They drew their attention to Louie, hopping onto him and doing what damage they could.

Olimar watched, satisfied, as the army of red Pikmin attacked Louie, until finally he knew Louie would run and called the Pikmin back. Louie ran and stumbled as he jumped into the water, seemingly having nowhere to go. Olimar was convinced and turned around. But Louie knew where he was going. He could make the repairs he could and then call out Pikmin, fast, before Olimar called out any more. This defeat would not go unpunished.

----

Shacho and the Research Pod rendezvoused with the ship's hull and the yellow onion. It was afternoon now, which meant that they would have to land soon. Shacho looked around the ship's database and selected the Forest of Hope, or as his computer knew it, the Awakening Wood. He decided to rebuild his army of yellow Pikmin in a familiar area with enemies he knew he could handle, and this time, he wouldn't take any uncharted routes underground.

----

Serbol regrouped his army. His green Pikmin had just revealed yet another, and their last, natural trait, an immunity to acidic properties, and obviously the malformed Mamuta with a temper. He was rather proud to have all 100 green soldiers with him. He mounted the Man-at-Legs and began to move slowly, just fast enough for the green Pikmin to travel with him. They crossed the Forest Navel, slowly traveling west, towards the Distant Spring.

----

Cehla and her fellow pilots and scientists walked quietly towards the Frontier Cavern. One of them had stopped to grab 100 white Pikmin, WHITE included. None of them said a word. They nodded to each other. They were leaving a couple of scientists behind just to operate the S.O.S. and continue the other half of Serbol's orders. The directions had clearly stated that they separate into two groups.

But it didn't matter. Cehla did not like her orders, but in her current position, being stuck on an alien planet with Serbol's orders being her only way home to her family and friends, she decided she would carry them out. As soon as the 100 white Pikmin arrived, she jumped into the cave. The pilots and scientists, 18 in total, jumped in after her, finally ending with all the Pikmin leaping in after them.

According to the scientists and their hand-held devices, the most recent tremor that vibrated through the Valley of Repose had most likely torn through this series of caves. There was a large chance that one of the walls had collapsed, hopefully connecting the Frontier Cavern to another sublevel cavern leading to where Serbol wanted them to go. When they landed in the first sublevel, they saw nothing but snow, Hairy and Snow bulborbs, a doodlebug, and another hole in the ground. Most of the bulborbs had died either by natural causes or the quakes, and so running through there was an easy task. They dove deeper.

Sublevel two brought nothing new, but the ground was littered with boulders and chunks of ice. Clearly they were getting closer to an opening. The pilots spread out, leaving Cehla to stay behind with the Pikmin, keeping their only real defense safe until they knew where to go.

One pilot walked around a boulder and saw a red monster, a Decorated Cannon Beetle. Right next to it, one of its own had grown to be a fully grown Armored Cannon Beetle. It was a nightmare, in short. Right then, he slipped off the ice and slid out from behind the boulder. Both the Armored and Decorated Cannon Beetles saw him and opened fire. The pilot tried to dive out of the way, having difficulty with the ice.

Both boulders missed and slammed into the wall behind the pilot. Frighteningly, the entire subworld began to shake. Both large beetles began to roar and squeal as the walls around them began to fall apart. Cehla and the Pikmin ran for cover, the pilots slowly reuniting with her. The only opening one of the scientists had discovered in this level instantly caved in, crushing an Armored Cannon Beetle Larva.

As soon as the ground stopped shaking, everyone sighed. Most in relief, but a few in frustration. They would have to dive even deeper now…

----

Finally, Shiyo and PURPLE finished off the mother bulbmin. The thirty bulbmin children panicked for a moment, running around with no direction, until Shiyo called them forth. All thirty of them took a good look at him and his PURPLE friend and joined the sole Pikmin behind the green leader. 31 soldiers, Shiyo felt better! If there were even more bulbmin around this place, he could rebuild his army! But how would he ever make more purples? Purple Pikmin didn't have an onion…

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**Long chapter, longer than most, at least. I hope you enjoyed. I don't really know what to put here today, but hey! I reached my deadline! I prefer to update on weekends, when I know most of you have no school to worry about. Thanks for reading, everyone! If you wish to comment or complain, I welcome all reviews.**


	11. Recovery

"**Too long, clanky, too long!!!" That's a quote, not mine, in case copyright comes to claim it. Basically I mean it's been too long since an update. I'm done with the move, finally, so now I can actually focus.**

**I'm getting closer and closer to the end of this story, and so I find myself getting to the final bits of the story, before I get to the finale. Now hopefully I'm writing chapters you enjoy, but just in case, I'll try to add a little extra to keep this interesting. Thanks again!**

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Captain Olimar and his 52 red Pikmin left the battlefield triumphantly. It was afternoon, and in a few hours the sun would start its descent. Olimar's family was asking him questions and suggesting raising more Pikmin, going after Louie, or stopping and taking a break. Olimar decided his daughter's idea to raise more Pikmin was the best idea.

He turned to the red onion and the dolphin, a sight he was glad to see again. He started from there and looked around for where he knew the largest amount of life would be. He knew this place pretty well, and headed for the center. There would probably be a few bulborbs and Bulbears there, along with some Swooping Snitchbugs, possibly a Puffy Blowhog. With the numbers he had right now, if he played his cards right, he might be able to take this fight his way and avoid any casualties!

Louie, on the other hand, what working frantically to keep his suit from malfunctioning. The life support had been damaged and now would only hold on to his precious air for 30 days. If he didn't find some place to recharge then, he was done for!!!

If he'd time to think, he probably would have laughed at the irony of the similarity of his current situation and Olimar's first on this planet. But then again, he had something Olimar didn't when he first landed here. He turned around to summon blue Pikmin from the Onion.

Olimar's first hint that things had gone wrong was when the Onion would not sprout any more new Pikmin into the field. He only had 52 Pikmin with him and the Onion wouldn't allow any more, which meant Louie was close, and he had an Onion! It was only common sense that told him it was the blue Onion.

But there would be no time for another fight with Louie. The sun was setting and the wild creatures would most definitely come out tonight on account of all the action that had happened today… He would just have to stay close to the Dolphin. If Louie was stupid enough to fight there, then maybe sunset would show him his reward.

----

Shacho could easily say that he hated himself right now. He landed in the Awakening Wood and the Yellow Onion dropped beside him and spit out a single seed. One insignificant little seed! It took a moment to grow and just sat there. Shacho found himself staring at it for some time. He was the cause of this Pikmin extinction… How could he bear to start again? What if he messed up again?

The Ship told him otherwise. While he still hated it, he plucked the seed and the newest 'incarnation' of YELLOW came out. The yellow Pikmin stared intently at its master and would gladly follow orders. But in the short time that they had left, YELLOW would see little action today. Only breeding for day 1…

----

Serbol walked steadily across the deserted landscape, amazingly dry for a place between the Forest Navel and Distant Spring. The green Pikmin would be tiring soon, and so he'd be forced to halt progress. He didn't like to slow down, but his 100 Pikmin would probably be needed at some point, so he showed patience.

----

Cehla landed on her rear once again on the cold snowy floor of yet another sublevel. She absolutely hated venturing down her, she had no idea how Captain Olimar did it for so long…

But the white Pikmin, unlike their usual ready stance, in this cave appeared quite mellow. One of the pilots called ten Pikmin with him before venturing further. His grey antenna light revealed the snow-filled cave to be quite enclosed, yet somehow calmly. It almost looked homely. While none of the pilots would realize it, the earthquakes in this planet had opened a large gap under the crust. They had no just entered the second sublevel of the Emergence Cave.

Unlike last time, there were no snowy bulborbs to fight off this time, and the geyser at the far end of the tunnel had stopped flowing due to the change of location. The ground itself was cracked in several places, and, while actually quite stable, it seemed as if the walls were ready to fall apart. Only the White Pikmin's calm tone seemed to force the pilots and scientists to relax. With the Pikmin's enhanced vision, no doubt they could tell that they were safe.

Cehla walked forward and stared at the collapsing walls and the cracked ground. That was just of natural causes, and Serbol, the entire team's leader, wanted them to do so much more. At first, it seemed well thought out, beneficial, and harmless. But having spent time here, she was starting to have regrets about following her orders, or at least, preparing to do so. She didn't have to worry about those orders until they met with Serbol again, but if they did, there was nothing to stop him from doing exactly what he came here to do.

The first pilot who'd set out to search found yet another hole do dive through. The scientists confirmed it would be a safe landing, and then they jumped. Cehla took one last look at the peace-filled cave before jumping. This was how the planet should stay… Not a mining field…

----

Another load of bulbmin joined Shiyo's group, settling for a grand total of 68(some had been lost during other battles). The destruction they had faced was almost nothing compared to how much Shiyo was gaining here. He could not believe he'd gotten this lucky! Just when all hope seemed lost, bulbmin came in an almost unlimited supply. It was almost as great as having his previous group of purples back again.

Speaking of which, he'd figured out what had killed them so easily the first time, a Waterwraith. It only made sense to what the experience was like…

It didn't matter now, they were far away from that, way deep down in the Cavern of Chaos. While Shiyo remembered no traces of bulbmin families original growing here, maybe the earthquakes and natural disasters here had changed that.

It certainly was interesting to see how much a series of a natural disaster could change the wildlife's stature and position. But he was not here to study that. He simply wanted to get back to the rest of his group. But he'd do anything to rebuild his purple army in the process…

As fate would smile upon him, he'd meet a Violet Candypop Bud a sublevel down. Having battled three more families of bulbmin, he now had a full army of 100 soldiers, all but one being bulbmin. That sole Purple was probably the last surviving purple Pikmin out there…

The Violet Candypop bud, along with all its relatives, had gone through a confusing evolution. The first time the famous Captain Olimar had been here, they could change 50 Pikmin before withering. On the second adventure(s), they changed only five. Now, Shiyo would just have to wait and see what happened next…

The single candy pop bud stored eight bulbmin and spat them out, and yet stayed there to consume more. Shiyo jumped in astonishment and joy! This Candypop Bud somehow decided to change fifty!

By finishing it off, Shiyo left that crumbled sublevel with 100 soldiers, 49 bulbmin and 51 purple Pikmin. The oldest of them, PURPLE, stared at the new flood of violet with a Pikmin form of pride and joy, and Shiyo shared that happiness! Now, if he just kept those numbers afloat, he could leave this cave with pride.

----

Olimar took one last look out into the Distant Spring. The sun was just about to set, give it another fifteen minutes or so. He didn't want to leave early, doing so would put the red Pikmin back into the onion and therefore giving Louie a chance to raise more Pikmin. He wouldn't let that happen. Any form of an army's sabotage, he would do it to prevent more Pikmin deaths, both red AND blue. As much as he may want Louie to be in the worst shape possible, he knew that the blue Pikmin that fought for the confused Pilot were only slaves to his will. Even though they did so willingly, it was Louie who held the strings, and Olimar would not let blue Pikmin die just because the confused novice had lost his way.

He returned to the red army, the Pikmin flourishing together, idle, waiting for some form of command but seemingly enjoying their time to relax. Right then and there, Olimar would have given anything to understand the Pikmin's emotions. No doubt they were alien format and probably worked in complete different ways than Olimar could comprehend, but more than once, he'd watched the soldiers work or rest and wanted dearly to get inside its head and learn how they thought, how they felt, if they felt sadness for a lost comrade… Was it just sad to lose another one of their species, or was it more like losing a brother? A question he would no doubt never get answered…

The Distant Spring was getting a much redder color as the sun began to glow just before it touched the horizon. To Olimar, it would be a call that it was almost time to leave. To creatures of the forest, it was ALMOST time to go out hunting. But to another beast, today's hunting would begin a bit early.

And what a place to start. Mere inches from where Olimar stood, only a few meters from the Red Onion and its 52 soldiers, RED and Gill included, a creature burst out of the soil. It's body was that of a serpent and head feathers were orange with a yellow beak and, of course, one foot where its tail would be. It was a Pileated Snagret. But not a usual one, it was a baby. It was young, not even as tall as the red onion yet!

But still a threat. As it burst out of the ground, Olimar dove out of the way and landed hard on the ground. The young Snagret jumped out onto the outside world and screeched(a little higher pitched) and spotted Olimar. Even more, it spotted 52 small meals, motionless and defenseless.

Three Pikmin were instantly snatched and swallowed. Olimar growled as he jumped to his feet and called the remaining Pikmin to his side. He faced it and realized just how young it was. It almost pained him to attack it, until he heard those three Pikmin scream before they were eaten. That changed his mind.

RED was the second Pikmin to land on the young snagret's head. Instantly, his flower made contact and he began to eat away at the monster's health, like a leech. The Snagret squealed, pain was so… different, and unwelcome. But hunger was stronger.

It shook the Pikmin off its head and jumped into the midst of the Pikmin army, nearly crushing Gill in the process. It snatched one more Pikmin into its yellow beak, and Olimar responded with the Pikmin swarming to its one foot. Usually this didn't do much, but it just might scare the creature.

It did. The monster took the Pikmin it its beak with it and it leaped into the air and came down headfirst, instantly burrowing into the sand. The Pikmin count came down to 48. All the Pikmin that had been knocked over jumped to their feet. RED ran to the middle of the circle, but made a very bad move doing so. The pileated Snagret came out from right beneath him.

The yellow beak was thankfully not open and instead pushed RED up into the air. Olimar acted fast and commanded the troops to swarm the monster's head while it was struggling to pull itself out of the ground.

The monster opened its eyes to see RED staring right into them. The eyes were a beady black with a strangely yellow iris. That and more, but there was no time to reflect. The damage was almost finished and the Snagret knew it was about to die if it stayed here for much longer.

It tore out of the ground violently, a large chunk of dirt smashing into Olimar. It jumped one last time, knocking all of the Pikmin off its head, and then disappearing into the soil one last time.

Olimar struggled to get the dirt off of him, but couldn't without the assistance of Pikmin. When he got out again, he took the time to realize that a baby creature had just come out of the ground early to hunt. For a beast that young to face the unknown so early and during an untimely hour meant that it either had parents that never taught it when it was safest to go out, or it was forced to come out somehow or another.

The thought was probably just an over exaggeration of his imagination, so he let it go. Besides, it was sunset. The sun had just an inch to go and it was time to depart. He called the 48 Pikmin to enter the onion and jumped into the Dolphin, just as he spotted a swarm of Shearwigs coming out of the soil. He bid them farewell as the Dolphin's roar scared most of them off.

----

Underwater, Louie pulled out the fourth Pikmin seed, now having a total of 52 blue Pikmin. His soldier count had announced that somewhere, Olimar had lost four Pikmin. As fast as he possibly could, he called his idle Pikmin the swarm the nearest wogpole or water dumple. Now, all of the Pikmin had left, but this was no time to harvest. Even though Louie would have given anything to gain 100 Pikmin and take away Olimar's chance to gather more troops, the sunset meant that everything out here would start hunting, and who knew what sort of creatures lurked the new river he stood in at night. From a group of water Dumples to Wollywogs to maybe even large fish or sharks, he decided it was a bad to time to out in the open. He sent all the Pikmin to their onion and then retreated to his small submerged cave.

Up in the sky, the Dolphin flew horizontal as Olimar took one last look at the Distant Spring for the day. As he did, the Guard Satellite suddenly burst with a large amount of beeps and alarms as it detached itself from the ship. It's barrel aimed down at the planet, where another intelligent machine stood.

Down there, the Man-at-Legs, piloted by Serbol, opened its cannon and aimed upwards at the dolphin. It fired instantly, but missing each time. In return, the Guard Satellite fired several flurries of bullets right back, most bouncing off the Man-at-Legs's metal hull. The rest landed down in the soil, amazingly not killing any of the 100 green Pikmin that stood there. They would only be safe because they were protected by the man-at-legs. Meanwhile the Green Onion would fly into the sky empty and meet up with them tomorrow.

Serbol commanded the machine to stop firing. It was useless, the Man-t-Legs's cannon wouldn't be able to get a good shot at whatever that ship was…

But wait… There weren't many ships out here. The only ones he knew were here was Shacho's golden ship and…

The S.S. Dolphin…. Captain Olimar! Serbol's head whirled to watch the tiny bright dot float into the sky, and soon noticed the red onion that followed it. "Olimar was here," he thought. "This would make things a little more difficult if he and his team were to succeed…"

----

Cehla and the rest of the pilots, scientists, and Pikmin dropped down another sublevel, previously uncharted by Olimar's logs. Down here, there was nothing but a large wide gap, as an earthquake tore rock apart and created this space. The bumpy ground led straight to a damaged geyser, but it functioned nonetheless. The first pilot, clearly itching to get out of the underground world, took a step forward, only to be met by a large creature landing inches from where he stood.

The pilot was flung back and was nearly claimed by the large black monster's pincer. When the dust finally cleared, Cehla and the others found themselves staring into the beady black eyes of what could best be described as a giant scorpion.

----

Shiyo had never felt more confident in himself. That was probably why he dove into one last sublevel. Even before his suit warned him that this was as deep as he'd ever get and that he needed find a geyser here, he knew something was wrong. Even before he turned to his army of Pikmin and bulbmin only to see them jittery and worried, he had a gut feeling that something bad would happen.

That gut feeling got worse when he noticed that he had stepped foot in what looked like an arena. All that he saw were smooth walls in a squared shape, the room expanding to a huge size, and the tunnel leading to a geyser on the other side. He made a point to bring only five Bulbmin with him, and the instant he took a step into the arena itself, a shadow appeared.

The crash that sounded echoed across every sublevel Shiyo had visited at this point. But it wasn't the loud sound Shiyo was worried about, but the hugely furious face of what he'd come to identify as a Segmented Crawbster. Now that he knew for a fact he was in the Cavern of Chaos, he stood there, frozen in fear. The giant crab swat him back into the idle group of Pikmin and bulbmin, but the five he brought with him died instantly.

----

_Captain Olimar's Ship Log,_

_Day 5:_

_Wow, really only five days since I've touched down here. Five long days… It's not at all like yesterday, or the day before… Is this timer even right? I don't know anymore. Louie's deception had gone punished, The Pikmin and I totaled him and he ran away tripping over himself. I had to admit it was a very satisfying sight to see the novice pilot and terrible strategist losing. Or maybe I'm getting better. Ha! That'll be fun!_

_Ah, well. I've been pondering whether or not to catalog the baby Pileated Snagret that I met this afternoon. The poor thing was scared to death and clearly had very little direction, I wonder why it came out of the ground so early?_

_Nah, until I discover what happened in its mind, I won't catalog it. Maybe it was an honest mistake that met with a red Pikmin army fury. At least the beast lived.. But then again, it took four red Pikmin with it, which I'm not too happy about… More on the war against Louie tomorrow. More on sleep right now._

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**A short chapter, possibly my shortest, but I really wanted to end the wait you guys had. Whether you guys noticed or not, oh well, but at least I got the story moving along. I just recently realized that I moved too slowly during the first chapters and now I'm paying for that; if I want to write the story and the epic stuff you guys actually want, I have to either change style right now(because dialogue is almost required for the story I want to tell) or make a sequel. That would mean that this story will only contain half of what I had planned… Well, we'll see how it goes. Thanks for reading! ( ' ' )**


	12. Sides taken

**The Holidays are over, which means it's time to come back! Vacation's over, everything's settling, and it's raining like crazy where I live. Anyway, on to the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pikmin or any of the related themes.**

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Day 6. It was early in the morning, Captain Olimar had just barely awakened, and his ship had set a course for the Distant Spring. The Captain had the whole breakfast to himself, as his family was still sleeping way back at Hocotate and hadn't gotten to turning on the camera for the live "chats" they had.

Olimar did love them to death, but he hated that they woke up every morning worrying about his life. Every night he reminded them that he hadn't died when he was stranded here, he hadn't died stuck with Louie or trying to find him, so with his Dolphin back, his suit perfectly functional, and with the pikmin by his side, what was there to worry about?

----

The third Fiery Bulblax roared, not in anger but in pain. It collapsed, the flames on its back extinguishing. Around it two others of its kind, several smaller bulborbs, and a mamuta lay dead, all similarly wounded by bullets. Those bullets came from a Man-at-Legs, piloted by Serbol, a Lieutenant well on his way to fulfilling his mission. Serbol was the leader of this expedition, although he hadn't told Shacho this when they left Hocotate together.

Serbol had plans on the Distant Planet that involved more than just recovery. Captain Olimar and young Louie were the lesser objectives. Well, that was debatable.

----

The S.S. Dolphin set down on a dryer section of the Distant Spring, with the Red Onion landing near him. Olimar stepped out of his beloved vessel and called out thirty red pikmin. As he expected, the soldier count in the field said 31, which meant Gill had survived the night and would be here soon, hopefully.

On the very other side of the landscape, in a section newly opened by the recent earthquakes, Louie and the Blue Onion were still sleep. At least, Louie was. His suit may have been dying, and he may have only 29 days until his suit stops functioning, but since when did it matter in his sleep?

The Blue Onion and its pikmin were still motionless and somehow safe, even down underwater where all sorts of creatures swam and hunted, especially at night.

Not far away at all, another Spotty Bulbear fell to the ground, dead. Serbol's Man-at-Legs had proven very useful indeed, but somehow he knew that the cannon he was using would run out of both power and ammunition soon. He had to conserve his weapon of mass destruction or find a way to reload and recharge…

Where could he do that? Maybe if he found Cehla and the rest of the team they could use the technology from the ship to rebuild this machine, but that could take time, assuming he found them at all.

The only other option would involve finding another Man-at-Legs and taking it over or simply shutting it down and finding a way to transfer the ammo and power… He had absolutely no idea if the Man-at-Legs had the proper hardware to do a transfer like that, but then again, they had been working for quite some time and still had energy and power. Maybe they preyed off of living things, as the small bit of the Man-at-Legs that was still a "living" dweevil could eat. But no, the science just didn't add up…

His thoughts were interrupted as a bright object tore through the sky, ruining the peaceful morning most creatures were having. Another yellow object followed it, and the first seemed to be having trouble flying.

----

Up in the cockpit, Shacho, President of Hocotate Freight, was having extreme trouble managing his golden ship, the Yellow Onion following hastily and barely keeping up. As he got closer to the ground, he collided with one of the Man-at-Leg's mechanical legs. Serbol's contraption tipped over and crashed, somehow not killing any of the 100 Green Pikmin beneath. Shacho's golden Ship kept going, not stopping, probably because Shacho had no idea how to, anyway. But somehow, the golden ship managed to settle onto the ground. The Yellow Onion somehow managed to find a safe spot to land not covered in the golden Ship's smoke and rested its three legs on the ground.

Serbol kicked off the metal plating to his Man-at-Legs, now missing a leg. He couldn't have been angrier, he almost wanted to punch one of the 100 Green Pikmin around him. He restrained himself, but as he eyed the damage with furious eyes, he remembered that he'd seen a golden ship like that before, in the hangar of the giant starship they'd arrived in….

That had been the President of Hocotate Freight he'd just run into! Serbol whirled to face the direction Shacho's ship had gone in. A thick trail of smoke told Serbol exactly where the poor president had landed. So, after calling all his troops to his side, he starting marching in that direction. But then again, there was already a pikmin count in the Distant Spring... There was someone else here?

----

Shacho fell out of the golden ship as the smoke began to disappear. The Golden ship notified him immediately that they had landed near the Distant Spring, at that scans told the ship there were somehow 131 pikmin out in the field.

The yellow onion saw this as simply 31, and allowed Shacho to pull out the one yellow pikmin he'd gotten. The yellow pikmin extinction had worked its toll on him, and he stared at the yellow pikmin sadly. This was the new YELLOW, but could he save this pikmin where he failed the original?

----

Cehla jumped from where she stood just a second ago as a giant pincer came down on that exact spot. This giant scorpion that she, her team, and the white pikmin were facing was clearly a relative of the infamous Segmented Crawbster, but it was much fiercer, if that was possible!!

One of the pilots was thrown back against the "arena" wall, all seven of his pikmin dying. Cehla eyed the pikmin count unhappily, there were only 83 white pikmin left and they hadn't even figured out how to hurt this creature!

One pilot stepped forward and tossed three white pikmin at its head, hoping that the face would have a weaker plating of armor than the rest of the body. All three pikmin bounced off and were crushed instantly.

Another pilot was batted away, but not all of his pikmin died. WHITE was one of the survivors, now scattered on the other side of the "arena", idle. Cehla, still in the fight, had circled the entire creature but could find no weak point at all. It was infuriating!

----

Shiyo was facing similar problems. He had 95 Purple pikmin and Bulbmin all to himself and was still facing issues hurting his new opponent Segmented Crawbster. When a purple pikmin was killed by a stupid mistake, Shiyo decided it was time to run.

He ran with the pikmin even though he had no idea where he was going. The Crawbster responded by rolling up into its shell and following Shiyo's group. At the last second Shiyo turned right and the pikmin followed. The Crawbster smashed into the wall and its soft belly was exposed. As soon as the ceiling stopped raining down, Shiyo moved in and sent as many pikmin as he could throw on the stomach.

Not ten seconds before the creature fell over, it smashed its huge claw against the ground, flipped over, and swung again, knocking every pikmin and Shiyo off their feet and flat on their backs.

The Crawbster raised its giant claw above the fallen pikmin army. The claw came down, crushing ten soldiers, all bulbmin. Shiyo watched them die with one last exhausted and frightened expression, and the image burned itself into his mind. He winced as he heard the sound of the claw crushing them, and then heard another sound, one that he wasn't so sure was much better.

Stone cracked, and it was loud enough that even the Crawbster stopped its assault to search for what had just happened. Shiyo stood up and took the opportunity to call all 84 pikmin to his side. It was when they cleared away from the Crawbster that he saw the source of the noise. When the Crawbster had smashed the ten bulbmin, it had cracked the ground beneath. Even worse, its weight was now getting too heavy for the breaking rock to hold.

----

Cehla saw the scorpion charge towards to pilots and their 23 pikmin. Most of the pikmin survived, and both pilots made it out of the way in time, but it only made the scorpion angrier. WHITE was thrown by a pilot onto the black scorpion's back, but WHITE only met its rock-hard shell. Its natural armor was solid enough probably to withstand a bomb-rock, let alone a white pikmin. Not even its heightened sense of vision could see a weak point.

The scorpion brought its left pincer down to crush three white pikmin instantly. The monster was trying to be everywhere at once, trying to smash the tiny intruders all at once. Many of them were evasive, but whenever they tried to attack, they were defeated. The scorpion shot its tail forward, missing WHITE by inches and instead smashing against the wall. It swung its two huge pincers at the white army and its colorful leaders(the antenna lights were quite distracting), missing both this time. It raised a small armored leg and managed to crush one more pikmin.

----

Shiyo panicked and began to run. His pikmin followed quickly, eager to get away from the giant blue crab. The Segmented Crawbster roared and stepped forward to pursue, but the stone floor beneath it was not going to withstand it.

CRACK! The rock fell apart and the Crawbster roared in surprise as it fell down the new chasm. Shiyo didn't stop running until he reached the other side of the "arena", and kept his pikmin close. The giant hole in the ground thankfully did not spread, meaning Shiyo and his army was safe.

The Crawster, however, was not. The trek down to the bottom of the chasm wasn't too long, but it was frightening all the same. When it landed, it landed on something stronger than stone, something painfully sturdy.

Cehla looked up to see a blue crab-like monster come from the collapsing ceiling and smash against the scorpion's back. The scorpion was flattened while the crab landed on the ground with a thud, mere inches from where she stood. She could hardly move, and when she did, it was only because the Crawbster had opened its beady black eyes.

Cehla called her nine pikmin and ran. The Segmented Crawbster got up painfully and followed. Cehla thought quickly and ran beneath the black scorpion, which had gotten up from the surprising arrival. The crab could stop in time and the two giant monsters collided.

Cehla and her fellow pilots gathered together on the far side of the "arena", their total pikmin count not 71. The entire team watched in horror and enjoyment, respectively, as the Segmented Crawbster and its scorpion cousin got into a fight.

The scorpion waved its two pincers as a bluff, but turned out not to be very scary. The Crawster swung its giant claw, batting away at its opponent. The scorpion responded with its lethal tail, the two sharp spikes cracking at the crab's blue shell.

The blue crab was being hassled, but no way was it going to back down because of a crack. If a crack was bad, how about a bigger one? It waved its huge claw towards the scorpion's body. Collision resulted in large bits of the scorpion's black shell to shatter and scatter across the "arena". Its much more tender skin appeared, but it wouldn't be reached today! The scorpion raised its left pincer and brought it down on the Crawbster's red fleshy head. The trauma was more than enough to knock the crab out.

The Scorpion didn't move. It eyed its blue opponent angrily, ready to attack again if the Crawbster was stupid enough to get up.

It didn't. The scorpion had won.

But now for a new fight. Cehla, her fellow pilots, and the white pikmin army had all been here to see the scorpion lose most of its left shell, and now its fleshy torso was visible and, more importantly, open for attack. Before the scorpion even lowered its tail or pincers, fifteen pikmin had landed on its side and started batting away at it.

The scorpion roared louder than ever before. It hadn't felt pain like this in a very long time!! It had almost forgotten that it was in danger of falling to an enemy just as any other creature in the world.

The scorpion swung its tail, knocking off half the pikmin. WHITE somehow found the strength to hold on as another falling pikmin grabbed onto his stem. As soon as the tail passed, both returned to whacking their enemy.

The black scorpion roared again, shaking the remaining pikmin off in one quick move. It turned around and its tail bent over to defend the scorpion's vulnerable spot. The giant monster hissed at the pilots and pikmin. Cehla took the first step and called 15 pikmin to her side. The scorpion extended one of its pincers, knocking her back and defeating one of her soldiers.

Then, without warning, everyone in the cave heard a series of loud thuds, as if several rocks had fallen from the ceiling. But no, they were purple pikmin, and fifty of them! They had dropped from the hole above! They were followed by 34 bulbmin and Shiyo. The pilot commanded his army to assault the scorpion's weak point.

The monster had no time to turn around, and even less time to process what was going on, but the feeling of pain was instant. The black creature roared and shrieked, but it was not going to live very long at this rate.

Cehla heard a creaking sound behind her. She whirled around to see the Segmented Crawbster waking up. She screamed, and her team scattered. The giant crab roared, rolled into a ball, and rammed into the scorpion. The black creature was smashed into the cavern wall, and more of its armor shattered. Its dark brown body was revealed, but the creature was already dead. The Segmented Crawbster uncurled and growled.

Shiyo's army and Cehla's team had almost no time for a reunion. The scorpion was dead, but the giant crab was not. Worse, the smash on the wall had spread. The entire sublevel was collapsing now!!

Shiyo called his army and they ran. Cehla and her fellow pilots and scientists called their 70 pikmin and ran with him. In that second, white and purple pikmin reunited, accompanied by their bulbmin (very distant) cousins. Shiyo ran near Cehla, who knew each other before the crash of the shuttle, and were quite surprised to run into each other, but now what not the time. The wall they were headed for had cracked and the crack had grown into a chasm. They ran into the chasm quickly, the way too narrow for the giant crab to follow. The cave collapsed and the Segmented Crawbster was buried alive with it.

The chasm wall fell apart and tore into another sublevel, previously discovered as the lair of the Raging Long Legs in the Hole of Heroes. The Raging Long Legs was not here, thankfully, and the geyser had no more water rushing through it, but it was a safe spot nonetheless. They heard the crash behind them as the sublevel was destroyed and the crab with it. Shiyo, Cehla, the other pilots, and all 154 pikmin collapsed, exhausted.

----

Above the surface, the pikmin count was also above 100. Usually the Onions would not allow this, but since 100 green pikmin had been much farther away when Olimar summoned 30 pikmin out, the Onion had not sensed the large numbers and had permitted the withdrawal. This meant that the red, yellow, and blue onions, all in the Distant Spring, could only detect 31 red pikmin and a single yellow. The green onion knew for a fact that 100 green soldiers were in the field and would not allow more, but now the order in which the onions had worked with had been tampered with. That was why there were 154 pikmin down below. The separate groups had not been in the same region when they reached their numbers, and so were allowed what they had. It was the same way Olimar had been able to have 100 pikmin in the Awakening wood even though there were Wild Pikmin in the Perplexing Pool in the previous adventure.

Louie had awakened by this point and was ready to go. His suit only counted 32 pikmin out in the field. He called out 55 blue soldiers, and marched out of the river. He appeared on the surface only a few yards away from where the Submerged Castle once was. A pair of Water Dumples appeared nearby for feeding, but both died.

The first thing Louie noticed about the area today was that there was very little wildlife. Usually there was at least a Swooping Snitchbug and a sleeping Fiery Bulblax, but today it was empty. Louie didn't know it, but all the creatures were dead on the other edge of the Distant Spring near the Man-at-Leg's debris.

As fate would have it, Gill, the sole rogue red Pikmin who seemed to take refuge in the Distant Spring, appeared out of nowhere. The tiny pikmin leaped off the berry plants he usually resided on and tackled Louie. The blue pikmin had no time to even look up before their red cousin came from above, smashed into Louie, and both rolled down the hill and into the water.

Louie got up and grabbed Gill by the stem, yanking him off and smashing the pikmin into the water. The red pikmin rolled to its feet and jumped, whacking Louie's helmet, causing it to ring inside the pilot's ears over and over again. He waved his arms around trying to get the annoying soldier off, but it did not good. Then he remembered his army. He knocked Gill of for a second, just enough to blow his whistle. 55 blue pikmin came running down the hill, and it would only take two or three to take gill down.

The blue army never made it into the water. A wall of red pikmin came from the left, blocking them from the water and blocking Louie from getting rid of this annoying pikmin. Olimar ran into the fight blowing his whistle frantically(with his family cheering in his radio), and the red army, even if it was just 30 pikmin, started the fight.

While the pikmin battle of red vs. blue started, Olimar jumped into the water and pulled Gill away, tossing him into the pikmin fight. Then he punched Louie in the stomach. The novice pilot fell over, wheezing. Olimar raised his foot, but then stopped. His eyes darted to Louie's suit, the blue pack on his back. It was broken.

Louie had a time limit to his air, just like he had only a few months ago!

Now this was interesting! Olimar grabbed Louie by the collar and looked him dead in the eye. Before any words were exchanged, however, both pilots heard another whistle noise.

Serbol, yellow antenna glowing brightly, led an army of 100 green little soldiers down the hill. Olimar dropped Louie, who almost smiled. It was Serbol! Maybe he could help!

But the third pilot had no intention of helping anyone but himself. His army of blue-eyed soldiers ran straight into the battle, fighting both red and blue pikmin. RED, for one, had just defeated a blue pikmin and moved on to the next, only for both to be assaulted by a cousin they'd never met before!

BLUE met a similar situation, his small team of five blues suddenly diminished to two. Gill leaped back and tripped over himself as the green armada approached. On the other side GREEN and his companions charged proudly, knowing there was nothing on this planet that could stop them now! And Serbol knew it too! Who could oppose him now?

----

Shacho walked aside his single yellow pikmin as the latter carried the remains of a pellet posy to the yellow onion. The object rose into the Onion, and two seeds came out. YELLOW was definitely happy to see two more brothers, but today was a harvesting time! The three of them were led to separate flowers and harvested them too. The new count of nine soldiers and their leader walked over a grassy hill to lay eyes on a frightening sight, a huge collection of wildlife bodies, all gathered together.

This was the same horde of enemies Serbol had killed earlier this morning, as was obvious enough by the bullet-holes, and the Man-at-Legs remains was not far away, missing one leg, possibly the original form of the scattered metal shards across the ground.

Shacho took the advantage and began harvesting the bodies. The nine pikmin gathered the smaller enemies first until they grew to tens to start carrying the bulbears and others. Needless to say, he had gotten extremely lucky. Although only 24 were permitted outside, they continued to multiply inside the onion, and grew to 108 total. He had power now! Then he remembered that he was only allowed so many pikmin. That meant there was another pilot somewhere around here!

----

Three actually, and all in a fight for their own lives. Olimar dropped Louie after five green pikmin jumped on his back, and Louie returned to his blue army in hopes of commanding a strategic attack only to be swarmed by green pikmin numbers. Shacho mercilessly commanded his green army to invade.

Olimar walked into the fighting armies and tore a green pikmin off RED. He grabbed the soldier and tossed him high into the air, landing perfectly on Serbol's head. The yellow-suited pilot fell over, slowing the green pikmin's victory. Although Olimar knew that any pikmin lost here would instantly be reborn at the onion(courtesy of a pikmin-killing-pikmin rule the onions apparently shared), he wasn't in a rush to lose his circle of influence. He blue his whistle as loudly as possible, calling RED, Gill, and the remaining 16 reds to him, formed a wall, and attacked green.

Meanwhile, Louie demanded his army stop, regroup, and then attack both at the same time. As this happened, he circled around and grabbed Serbol. It was time for a talk.

There wasn't too much time, but enough had been said. Yet there was no time for a quick withdraw. 24 yellow pikmin charged at them from behind.

Shacho instantly located all three pilots and commanded his army stop fighting. Olimar took advantage of the cease and swarmed green. Green fought back and Louie commanded his remaining blue troops to attack his former boss. Shacho was awestruck, but he responded quickly. In short, chaos.

----

Shiyo and Cehla had already exchanged their stories as they watched the white pikmin dig out the last remaining pilots and soldiers. Cehla quite enjoyed the fact of having purple pikmin and bulbmin on the team, and Shiyo was just happy to be back.

154 soldiers weren't bad at all, but Cehla also had bad news. They had found their leader (Serbol)'s orders. Shiyo listened to the message and read the message several times, but he didn't accept it. He stared back at Cehla, who shrugged sadly. Then he threw down the message. He refused to follow his orders.

Cehla couldn't have agreed more. This Distant Planet was meant to stay living, fresh, natural. Why would Serbol want to industrialize this place? What gain was there?

There was no time to think about that. Instantly, the entire sublevel began to shake. Dust fell from the cave ceiling, the walls vibrated, and the ground rumbled violently.

----

All four pilots and their pikmin stopped too. The ground started shaking, and everything was falling over. The bitter berry plants tipped over, pellet posies fell, and every living creature on the ground dropped, pikmin and pilots included.

It was an earthquake!

Olimar had assumed that the ground traumas had ended! It was happening again?? Shacho called his pikmin together. Serbol did, too. Louie fell over and was too shocked to move. Olimar rounded up his pikmin and stayed exactly where he was.

Down in the river, where the blue onion still stood near Louie's cave, the ground yawned open. Water instantly began to flow into it, until the chasm was big enough and the blue onion dropped in as well.

Snagrets popped out from the ground, bulborb families awakened and panicked, dweevils did their best to stay standing, and a mamuta tipped over.

Underground, Cehla, Shiyo, the pilots, and all the pikmin, stood together in a group, until they heard the ceiling crack above them. From the sublevel above them, a gatling groink slipped into the crevice and smashed into the ground near Shiyo, cracking open. The unit would not be auto-repairing itself this time. But it was a simple miracle that the ceiling had not simply collapsed on them at all.

Finally, the earthquake settled…

Olimar and Shacho stood firmly while Louie and Serbol gathered their armies and ran. Olimar didn't do anything to stop them. There would be a time to find them later, but not right after this chaos. If they wanted to run off without a ship or safety, it was fine with him.

He turned to his boss, Shacho, and they shook hands. It had been a while. Olimar looked behind the other pilot and noticed the remaining yellow army. He was glad to see the other species had survived! But now that would have to be used to its best. If Louie and Serbol had just joined, then now they had Serbol's intelligence and Louie's…

Louie was there, too, basically. Olimar only hoped they could grow enough pikmin in time to go find those two pilots and bring them to justice.

Getting farther away, Louie didn't look back. He knew he had just made a deal with Serbol, and this meant Louie would have to get busy soon, but this was something he was willing to do. He and Serbol had spoken about this idea before, now it was time to put it into action.

Down below, Shiyo and Cehla's parties combined, and now they were ready to work their way upward, back to the surface of the Wistful Wild.

**

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It's been a while since my last update… Let me know what you thought of it! Oh, and sorry if I'm a little off on my writing; it's been a while…


	13. Trek

**It's been a long time since I've written, but now I've got spare time(can't sleep today), so I'm getting straight to it!**

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The earthquake had ravaged everything. Just like all the other earthquakes that had happened before, and seemed to be getting more violent each time, even if they were getting rarer. Snagrets had died underground as the ground tore apart around them, Breabugs lost all their gathered foods, bulborb family were disoriented and lost. Oddly enough, even the airborne creatures had suffered. Helmeroc bird nests had collapsed with the trees and those trees collapsed on even more ground creatures. It was like the planet was just attacking them all!

The Emergence Cave in the Valley of Repose had collapsed entirely; there was no way anyone would ever walk underground there ever again. The Hole of Heroes at the Wistful Wild had been torn apart and many of the life inside there had found refuge out on the surface. The Distant Spring would soon be swarming with dweevils of all species, as the Citadel of Spiders there had been ravaged.

Among the casualties was the Blue Onion. It had previously been resting in a river, but the ground beneath it had ripped in two, a new canyon yawning open and the Blue Onion fell inside along with all the water and all the life swimming in it. Where was the Blue Onion now? It would be a miracle if they found it…

----

Outside of the Blue Onion were only 41 blue pikmin, BLUE included. Louie walked tiredly with his group and Serbol's group of 83 Green soldiers. Louie had already gone back to look for the Blue Onion but failed. Now he was stuck with what little he had. If all the blue pikmin he had died, it was very possible they would never populate again…

Serbol wasn't worried about that. Sure, he wanted blue soldiers to survive if he was going to accomplish what he came here for, but right now, that was a smaller part of what was on his mind. Captain Olimar and Shacho of Hocotate Freight were on the planet and they had pikmin to fight with. That meant Serbol would need to get rid of them if he was to gather resources from this planet. He'd read before that Hocotate Freight had paid off its debt by searching for treasure on this planet. If this world had riches like that, what else did it have? What if there were minerals or crystals here that could sell for even more?? That was why he was here, and it was why he wanted Cehla's group to find a good spot to start mining…

----

Speaking of which, Cehla, Shiyo, their team, and the 154 pikmin were at the very bottom of the Hole of Heroes, and now that to make their way to surface. 49 Purple pikmin, 70 yellow, and 35 bulbmin. It was very nice number to have. Still, Cehla wasn't happy about what they were supposed to use the pikmin for. Serbol wanted the pikmin to be used as the soldiers to carry whatever rare gems or riches they found. While Pikmin didn't seem to mind physical labor at all, Serbol would not take the time to understand that the pikmin would need their rest, too.

Shiyo walked quietly, deep in thought. He's survived this long by himself, yet he'd lost so many pikmin lives along the way. If Serbol got his way, how many more pikmin would die? It didn't seem like a risk he wanted to take…

But those thought would have to wait. The Hole of Heroes was still vastly populated by terrified wildlife. Every creature alive was scared to death or another earthquake, and none would be happy to see any other living creature for quite some time…

So, A Spotty Bulbear in that furious and scared mood was the last thing any of them wanted to see. But alas, it did. The monster was overflowing with feelings of territorial and desperate fear of survival, and an abnormally large army of pikmin was the last thing it wanted to see, too.

The bulbear stomped forward, red eyes glowing with terror, and it roared as loud as it possible could. This could best be translated as "Go away." No doubt Cehla, Shiyo, and the rest of their party got the message. Somewhere else in the sublevel, a small group of Fiery Dweevils were startled and ran for cover. On the other side of the sublevel parts of the ceiling caved in; one of the small landslides covered up a swarm of sheargrubs.

Shiyo motioned for the group to slowly back away. No one argued, this bulbear looked more fearsome that an emperor bulblax at the moment. Cehla took command of the pikmin armies as they slowly retreated. Shiyo was the last to back off, until the bulbear backed down and returned to its cave.

Cehla's radar searched the sublevel files for the Hole of Heroes, and began hunting for the nearest geyser. If they could find a way to travel upwards, then it was likely they would find a geyser and use it if it was still spewing water. It would be unfortunate if this next one would be out like the one at the very bottom of the cave…

Sublevel 12 was where they wanted to be. They were in sublevel 14, which had been previously inhabited by a Beady Long Legs. But it wasn't here now!

The trek up started easily enough. The earthquake had shattered the walls of the sublevels, which also provided a form of a "staircase" for climbing back up sublevels. Shiyo took the lead as he, Cehla, the other pilots, and their pikmin began hopping up separate boulders to find their escape.

----

Captain Olimar and his boss Shacho were walking back to their respective ships, yellow and red pikmin having finally been reunited. Shacho allowed his soldiers to gather corpses before they left, and Olimar plucked out pikmin seeds that had sprouted during the pikmin vs. pikmin battle(Pikmin biology somehow made it so any pikmin killed by a pikmin would naturally be reborn at its own Onion.)

Olimar allowed the red army to build up its numbers a bit as well by taking whatever creatures had fallen previously to Serbol's wrath of Green pikmin or his Man-at-Legs before it had gone out of commission. Finally, although it was barely the afternoon, the two pilots and their two onions lifted off from the Distant Spring. Of course, for reasons unknown, Gill stayed behind.

The two ships hovered over the moist land one last time before heading up to search for Serbol and Louie. Olimar was not going to let Serbol take a new species of pikmin on this planet and destroy anything in his path like that. This planet was rich with new life and feisty people like Serbol who just wanted power were the sort of people who could bring this planet's natural order to a cataclysmic crash.

----

Unfortunately, Serbol was smart and he decided to hide under the huge trees outside the Distant Spring with Louie and their army. Serbol now counted only 124 pikmin in the field. That meant either Olimar and Shacho had gone very far away or they had withdrawn from the Distant Spring. Either way, they would hide here in the trees for a while… For once, lying around was not on Louie's priority list. He was still terrified of the fact that his air filter would only work for so many days. He wanted to get his suit fixed soon, or he would die!!

Shacho finished his circle and saw nothing. He and the Yellow Onion turned around and headed for the rendezvous point he and Olimar had Established, the Valley of Repose.

----

Olimar flew over the Forest of Hope and saw nothing. He sighed helplessly and glanced back at the red onion flying loyally next to his ship. They circled around and flew towards the Valley of Repose.

Above them, a Helmeroc bird flew through the clouds hunting for food that had decided to remain out in the open. It spotted the S.S. Dolphin and the Red Onion and chose to dive after the latter. The bird dove and snatched the onion right out of the air. Olimar panicked and swerved out of the way, only letting the bird get farther away.

Olimar turned back around towards the large black bird and sped up as fast as his ship would let him. He finally caught up enough that he felt confident using his Nova Blaster. His ship opened a small hatch that extended the lovely little gun the S.S. Dolphin carried around. Meanwhile the Guard Satellite was already targeting the Helmeroc for a more accurate blast. Using the weapon was risky, but here went nothing…

BANG!!! The Helmeroc felt the blast and instantly began to drop. The Red Onion had been released and resumed its flight path. The Helmeroc would eventually plunge into a body of water and likely become food for Bloysters, wogpoles, or water dumples. Olimar almost smiled as the Red Onion turned to his side and they resumed their course.

----

Serbol decided it was a good idea to use whatever daylight they had left to create a shelter of some sort. He chose a tree to hide underneath and instructed his pikmin group to start digging a cave that burrowed by the tree roots. Nearby, blue pikmin sat idle as Louie tampered with his broken antenna light, trying to bring it back on.

Serbol heard louds howls and shrieks in the forest, and it frightened him, even though he'd never admit it. He could barely see a trio of Burrowing Snagrets picking on a group of Wollywogs, or a lost Waterwraith roaming the woods with its sinister groan. Serbol decided to quicken the pace by adding the blue pikmin to the job and dragging Louie closer to the huge tree for cover. Serbol turned off his yellow antenna light to keep from attracting attention and waited until their cave was built.

----

Shacho arrived at the Valley of Repose first, and the first thing he noticed was that there was already junk here. There were huge scraps of metal everywhere! This was the old shelter used by Cehla's group. One of their SOS towers was still functioning, but Serbol knew it wouldn't help at all. But when he turned to his right, he stopped something else that Cehla's group had left behind; the White Onion.

Olimar landed about ten minutes later only to see Shacho walking around with both yellow and white pikmin. The Captain smiled and was simply overjoyed to see three colors back together again. Maybe fighting Serbol and Louie would be possible!

----

Shiyo landed on the top of sublevel 13. They had one more level to go before theyd find out if the geyser would be their ticket out. He helped Cehla and the other pilots up the last ledge before watching the white and purple pikmin leap easily from rock to rock, followed by the bulbmin. It was still a long climb ahead of them, but at least they were making progress. They were almost at the surface of the Wistful Wild.

----

Finally, the shelter had been completed. Serbol and Louie jumped right into the large hole and the pikmin joined them. They heard all sorts of creatures walking around above them, and Serbol decided they would spend the night here. They would get up first thing in the morning and head for the Wistful Wild from here…

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**A short chapter, but a chapter nonetheless. I'm trying to get priorities down and other things, so forgive me for slow updates. Thanks for all your reviews, by the way! It makes my day!**


	14. One Step Closer

**The fact that I'd taken so long to update really woke me up, so this chapter was written for time's sake. There was once a time where I'd write one chapter, update it, and then already have the next one ready to go and I'd force myself to wait before updating! Ha! Miss those days.**

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Day six was entering its waning hours. It would only be a little while longer until the sun set and wildlife would be roaming the ruins of the once rich and vast landscapes. The Forest of Hope was still a forest, and the Distant Spring was still flooding with water, but there were new obstacles among them like small crevices opened by the moving crust. Trees had fallen over, lakes had either emptied or flooded even more, and idle bomb-rocks had been set off and destroyed anything around them, including any creatures that were genius enough to stand next to them during a cataclysm such as that.

The Withered Vale region, which Serbol and Louie had ventured through before, was just a grave of dead trees, now fallen over and burned due to a Fiery Bulbax accident. The Wistful Wild just became more of a problem to anyone who walked through it. Even worse, all across the planet, wildlife had gone insane. Bulborbs turned to Sheargrubs and other small beasts for food. Waterwraiths rolled across all of the Distant Spring now, hunting for a new home. Snagret tunnels had been ruined and now they were busy either remaking their homes or finding new ones. Breadbugs collected HUGE amounts of spoils and were now fighting each other to get whatever creatures had died during the quake. Needless to say, the food chain was becoming another casualty of the planet's troubles.

----

Captain Olimar walked on the soft snow of the Valley of Repose (scenic appearance somehow undamaged) towards the White Onion with awe. He'd never believed the White Pikmin could have an Onion! It was just a dream come true to finally see it! He stepped into the white light emitting from the Onion's hull. The psychological connection reaching into his mind, asking how many pikmin he wanted; it was just like the original three onions. There was no special touch to it, no sign that it had just been born or was different. It was just there, as if it had been on this planet the entire time!

Nearby, Shacho was enjoying adding white to his army. White and yellow went very well together, in his opinion. And Olimar had the red onion, which meant they had three armies now! They had three onions on their side! How on earth could anything or anyone oppose them now?

----

Very far from the Valley of Repose, somewhere between the Distant Spring and the Wistful Wild, in a cave in the roots of a huge tree, Serbol was wondering the exact same thing. He had 124 pikmin, 41 blues and 83 green. Although his own army had managed to take Olimar and Shacho by surprise, now he was on the run. He had limited troops and no way of spawning more. The Green Onion was back in the Distant Spring. Yes, it was probably smart enough to leave at night during the chaos, but unless he found some way to flag it down, he'd have no way of creating any more troops at all…

Next to him, huddled up against a large root, Louie was tinkering with his suit. He was trying to find out if he could minimize the amount of air he breathed and seeing if he could extend him time. Sure, he had about 27 days left before his suit died, but he had 41 blue pikmin and no Onion, and no way to get off the planet!! Serbol here wanted to stay here and invest in the planet's rich resources! Unless he could get to some form of a ship and fly it back home, he had no idea how he's survive unless Shacho caught him. If Shacho found him and captured him, he'd be brought back home and go to jail. It had to be Shacho. If Olimar found him, the Captain would kill him or leave him here.

BLUE and GREEN were idly sitting in the cave. Every pikmin in the cave could hear the roars of the monsters outside, and they had no doubt their leaders could hear them, too. Amongst the screeches of Helmeroc birds flying above the woods, Waterwraiths wailing as they looked for new homes, and the intense numbers of Antenna Beetles in the trees, they could hear Gatling Groinks just waltzing around and firing at anything that passed by. It was likely there was a Giant Breadbug patrolling the woods looking for spoils as well. And since there were constant kicks of dirt and little growls each time, there was a very big chance that the woods were flowing with Sheargrubs and Shearwigs. Needless to say, it was suicide to go out there now, even if their numbers was over 100. So they went with Serbol's plan to rest here until morning, where hopefully things would be calmer. In the meantime, the pikmin gathered their strength, Louie panicked more, and Serbol began brainstorming on how to get a Green Onion's attention and how to make a stand against Olimar and Shacho, if the worst came to worst.

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Shiyo, Cehla, and their 23 other pilots finished their short rest. Climbing up an entire sublevel was much more physically trying that they had believed. Even WHITE and PURPLE were feeling a bit exhausted, and the entire legion of 154 pikmin had taken advantage of their break time.

Shiyo stood up and then suddenly realized that this sublevel was metallic. It was a rusty old floor with faded blue paint. Even Captain Olimar could not explain who had built these sublevels. Captain Olimar's educated guess, featured in his logs, presumed that the Long Legs family, including the Beady, Raging, and even the Man-at-Legs, were from the same basic origin. And if not, they were an eventual product. On this, everyone agreed. This was why Olimar had tried to dissect Long Legs specimens before, yet each attempt yielded with the same result; the specimen deteriorating to dust. It was simply a mystery fate did not want solved.

Shiyo decided it was time to find the next way up. He roamed the sublevel for his answer and eventually found an opening, a crevice in the natural wall close enough that they could use to climb up to sublevel 12. Shiyo smiled and turned back to deliver the news.

On the way back, he noticed something metallic in the center of the sublevel, like a steel hemisphere, somehow featuring exhaust pipes. Shiyo walked closer to get a better look. It seemed to a full sphere half buried. The exhaust pipes were releasing small amounts of smoke, and the hull had a tan-brownish coloring to it.

Too late, Shiyo realized what it was and turned around, sprinting as fast as he possibly could, but it was too late. The mechanical spider had awakened.

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Captain Olimar walked up a small pathway in the Valley of Repose until he came upon a most interesting sight. He had 33 red soldiers with him at the time, RED included. All of them looked up and they were suddenly impressed. They had found Cehla's group's old camp. The shelters were constructed by remnants of the shuttle. Olimar's mind suddenly flashed back to that horrific crash that he'd witnessed only a few days ago. There must have been survivors, and they had made shelter here! It was even possible they'd encountered the White Onion! How convenient!

Olimar walked through the abandoned camp slowly, his pikmin trying not to make a sound. The Captain walked over to a defense turret, observing its design and functions. After a while, he figured out which part of Hocotate the ship had departed from. A little more roaming showed him the last known trajectory logs of the ship, which had been stored in a small computer for instant access. Olimar worked the computer until he pulled up the cruiser's latest charts. Olimar saw nothing but a straight line to the Distant Planet…

How had this cruiser known of the Distant Planet? Olimar wanted to know. He pulled on his mic and asked his family if they knew anything. His son said that he'd found a recruiting online a while ago, putting together a team of pilots to travel to a dangerous planet, but this had taken place before Olimar or even Louie had left Hocotate! It made no sense to him…

The captain continued walking. They spotted the makeshift tents of metal that the survivors had slept in, the meals that had yet to be prepared (Olimar's favored Space Noodles included) and all sorts of little trinkets the group of pilots and scientists had during their time here. Olimar followed the trail of footsteps to lead out into the Valley's first cave, the Emergence Cave. But this cave had collapsed on itself. There was no way Olimar would be able to follow this team…

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Good thing, too, because that team was now running from an awakened Man-at-Legs. The mechanical monster was blowing out steam furiously and the pilots were dividing their groups of pikmin fairly to make an efficient team.

Shiyo leaped back as the machine's metal leg nearly crushed him. Behind him were PURPLE, seven other purple pikmin, two bulbmin, and five white pikmin. All around them, the 16 other pilots, Cehla included, ran around the Man-at-Legs, hoping that once it drew its almighty machine gun, whoever it wasn't focusing on would make the move and go in for the kill.

The Man-at-Legs stopped stomping; the bottom half of the machine's "head" opened up, the machine gun barrel appearing and the red targeting light already floating around the sublevel. The machine didn't even wait until it had taken aim to fire. 8 stray shots came first, until the next shot at a pilot's group of pikmin. All but three white pikmin were defeated. One pilot had been standing too close to the edge of the sublevel, not very far away from the seemingly bottomless pit. The Man-at-Legs opened fire and the pilot was shot backwards down into the pit, never to be seen again. Cehla ran by and called the late pilot's pikmin to her side.

Shiyo took his chance. He dashed forward past one of the machine's real legs, his 16 pikmin following. PURPLE was thrown first, and he landed right on top of the machine's sphere head. The other purple pikmin followed. Cehla ran behind him and did the same. WHITE now joined the group assaulting the Man-at-Legs. The two pilots continued to throw as the machine gun fired at other pilots. When the gun finally receded, the spider-like machine twisted its body violently, in an attempt to throw all the pikmin off its hull. All but WHITE fell, instead flying upwards and landing on the top of the Man-at-Legs's mechanic leg. WHITE continued the attack, now slowly breaking the enemy's crucial joint.

Shiyo ran for his life as another wave of bullets showered all around him. One nearly scratched his helmet and he started to panic at this. Behind him PURPLE had almost been killed several times, and beside him, a bulbmin had been shot and killed. Not too far off, a white pikmin received a bullet hole in its leaf. Cehla ducked as a flurry of bullets shot over her head and bounced off the metal flooring of the sublevel. PURPLE jumped over a bouncing bullet as it skimmed off the metal surface. Several other pilots found themselves suffering pikmin losses, until finally the shooting stopped.

Shiyo leaped and fell to the metal floor as one of the Man-at-Leg's large dweevil legs came down where he'd been standing just a second ago. But finally, the monster stopped stomping.

WHITE succeeded; the metal joint beneath him fell apart and the "knee" holding both halves of the metal leg separated. The bottom half slowly tipped over to the metal floor, WHITE rolling off and losing a few petals.

As the Man-at-Legs struggled to stay standing, Shiyo heard a creaking sound, one like metal whining over too much rust. In fact, this was exactly what was going on. Shiyo didn't need to think. He started running and screaming for everyone to follow him. He blew his whistle harder than ever before as he dashed to the small opening in the cave wall. If he was right, this entire metallic flooring was about to collapse, and they had to be off of it and going to the sublevel above them!

Shiyo helped all the pilots and pikmin up into the cave wall as the Man-at-Legs failed to stay standing. Releasing one last powerful jet of steam, the mechanical monster tipped over. The metal sphere it called its head cracked and broke apart, but it also tore through the sublevel floor, as Shiyo predicted. The rest of the metal floor starting to crumble, until the giant machine itself just slipped into the growing hole of metal. The rest of the sublevel followed, leaving nothing but a huge cave of emptiness. Sublevel 13 was gone. Shiyo sighed in relief and began to climb, as did everyone else. The next sublevel, number 12, should have a geyser to take them home…

----

Captain Olimar watched the sunset as it showed the last bits of light over the snow-covered landscape. It was truly a gorgeous sight to see, every member in his family had to agree on that. The day ended right there, and Shacho went to work putting all three species of pikmin in their Onions before entering his golden Ship. Olimar stood there for another second or so before returning to the S.S. Dolphin. His ship and Shacho's lifted off seconds apart, the red Onion following the Dolphin and the yellow and white ones fillowing the Golden Ship. The five vessels flew up into the night sky for the night as day six ended…

Cehla was the first to arrive at Sublevel 12. Captain Olimar had labeled this area to be completely enemy-free, aside from some Candypop Buds, but all she wanted to know was if the geyser was still working. She searched the entire level as Shiyo and the others arrived until finally she located the sight for sore eyes. There was the geyser! Only, there was no water shooting out. It wasn't working…

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**I figured I'd get this chapter up for the weekend, for your benefit. I hope you enjoy! Thanks for sticking with me this far! I'm entering the waning chapters of this story, we'll see what happens! Review if you wish!**


	15. Nova Blaster

**Spring Break is ending for me, and so the arrival of new chapters is nigh. I replayed Pikmin on the Wii the other day, I'd forgotten how much I loved the game, and how far you have to plan ahead in order for a day to go smoothly. But anyway, onto the story.**

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Day seven of the adventure began with a beautiful sunrise. Captain Olimar's S.S. Dolphin sailed smoothly and gently down from the atmosphere, leaving a clean and slim trail of smoke behind. The morning was quiet and soothing. Olimar felt well-rested and wide awake, and rediscovered just how amazing this planet was.

Three Onions and a golden ship carrying his employer followed him. Their mission was to find Louie and Serbol, two rogues who had gone far enough abusing the power they had on this planet. The red, yellow, and white onions spun around the Dolphin gracefully as the radio came on inside the ship. Olimar told his family to hold as he answered the call from the ship flying next to him. He and Shacho decided to split up but remain in close formation, so to cover more ground and remain nearby and safe.

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Serbol awoke with a start; now was the time. If he was going to signal the Green Onion, it would have to be now. He grabbed GREEN and dashed outside with a little gadget that he'd come up with last night.

He climbed out of the hole the Pikmin had dug as a shelter and carried GREEN with him to the surface. He pulled out the little gadget, which looked like a remote control, only it also contained a mirror and some sort of tiny satellite. He'd created this gadget from taking parts from Louie's suit pack, since it was dying anyway. Of course Louie had been asleep at the time and had no idea…

He looked through the gadget, with had several tiny extra functions, one of which being binoculars. He somehow managed to spot the Green Onion hovering in the air, slowly traveling back to the Distant Spring. At this time, he locked onto the aircraft and turned on another function. He blew his whistle, and the gadget took this sound and shot it through the mini satellite.

The sound waves traveled brilliantly fast, and reached the Green Onion. The onion 'heard' this heightened version of its leader's whistle and began to chance course. Just to be safe, Serbol had GREEN call out randomly and shout quickly and let those sounds travel to the Onion as well. As a final result, Serbol flipped the mirror out and started to reflect the sunlight off the mirror and towards the Onion, just so it knew exactly where to go.

Two minutes later, the Green Onion landed inches from where Serbol stood. GREEN jumped up and down and cheered, overjoyed to see the mothership again. Serbol jumped back down and called the rest of the Green soldiers he had and brought them up to the surface. He allowed them all to enter the Onion. Now he was stuck with just Louie and his small group of blue pikmin… this made things a tiny bit easier.

----

Olimar changed his course. He could have sworn he'd seen something else flying in the air that wasn't a Helmeroc bird, and he wasn't even sure it had wings! He looked behind his ship; the Red and White Onions were following him while the Yellow Onion trailed behind Shacho's golden ship. Yet the Captain was sure he'd seen something else… He flew over the Distant Spring to investigate.

Serbol and the Onion were hidden under the trees of the forest, but he could still see past the branches and leaves. He instinctively ducked as the S.S. Dolphin and two brightly colored Onions flew at high speeds just over the trees. He looked over in disgust; Captain Olimar had seen something…

Olimar turned around for another pass; he was sure he'd seen something land in this part of the woods… But his overview had caused more problems for Serbol.

In the woods, a huge amount of creatures had awakened. Many of them preyed on each other, but Serbol, blue pikmin, and the awakening Louie were also on the menu, and were seen as easy targets.

Serbol instantly began to run, storing the gadget in his suit. Louie shook himself awake and then his eyes widened when he saw a Fiery Bulblax walking towards him with a hungry look in its eye. He called his 41 blue pikmin, BLUE included, and bolted after Serbol.

The Fiery Bulblax moved fast and nearly managed to snag a blue pikmin at least five times. Yet each time, the blue pikmin would find a new energy and run faster, keeping the pikmin count at 41. Louie ran faster still, suddenly realizing that Serbol didn't even warn him. That jerk had almost left him to die!!

There was very little time to process that sort of thought when a tree nearby suddenly tipped over and crushed the Fiery Bulblax. BLUE turned his head and a saw a group of Cannon Beetles approaching. They were slow, though, and soon enough they were out of sight. Louie and Serbol stopped to catch their breath. Louie was just about to march up and punch his counterpart when a bigger problem showed up.

An Emperor Bulblax roared from behind a group of trees. The very sound echoed across the forest, spooking both pilots, the pikmin, and every other small creature in the area. Even Olimar heard it from the sky! He turned the ship and saw the Emperor Bulblax roaring and moving quickly towards a prey he could not see. He figured he'd rid the world of one more monster and readied the Nova Blaster equipped on his ship.

Louie ran again, but Serbol fell over out of pure shock. He stared with wide eyes as the Bulblax lord stepped closer towards him. Just second before it would have devoured him, three bright blasts of energy rained from the sky, barely missing the Bulblax and tearing down three trees instead. But it was enough to wake the startled pilot.

Olimar cursed; he'd missed. Hmm… He turned around for another shot.

The Bulblax chased Serbol, furiously hungry and angry now. Behind them, the S.S. Dolphin rained chaos(literally) upon them by firing the Nova Blaster. The Bulblax felt a burn on its shell, but did not stray from its task.

From the side emerged a Beady Long Legs, awakened by the chaos. It stepped past tall strong trees without difficulty and came across Louie and his 41 soldiers. The blue-suited pilot panicked, but turned and ran in a different direction. This time, Olimar's ship managed a direct hit and blasted one of the mechanical spider's orange legs. The monster struggled to maintain its balance, but was knocked over when Serbol and the Emperor ran by, the latter batting the Long Legs creature aside as if it were simply a fly.

Olimar grew tired of missing, so he flew out farther so his return flight would give him more time to aim. But every one of his shots had simply being awakening more creatures in the woods.

Louie heard a crack of wood and instinctively ducked. What luck that he did; a Pileated Snagret leaped from behind a tree and dove after him, missing his helmet by mere centimeters. The Snagret hit the ground and rolled back to its feet, squawking and going back for another attempt. Louie ran in the complete opposite direction, no longer having any idea where the way out of these woods was.

Serbol ran as fast as he possibly could from the Bulblax. Ahead of him, a Segmented Crawbster had been startled and sighted the two at they came closer. It rolled up into a ball and rolled towards the Bulblax. Serbol spotted this monstrosity and managed to plan a collision course. He timed it just right and then leaped out of the way. The Segmented Crawbster rolled at an astonishing speed, barely missing him, and smashed right into the Emperor Bulblax's face.

The latter creature was killed instantly. The Crawbster kept rolling unable to stop at such a high velocity. It crushed a fully grown Armored Cannon Beetle and then killed the Pileated Snagret chasing after Louie. When it finally stopped, Olimar's Nova Blaster shot it twice. It stopped moving and died there in the woods.

There was one final creature that emerged from the forest. Its beefy four legs, one of them scorched, brought trembles across the forest, until Louie looked upon a familiar creature, the Titan Dweevil. This was the same exact creature Shacho had fought and lost all his yellow pikmin to. The bomb-rock incident was remembered by the monster's burned leg.

Louie knew that he stood no chance against this thing. He turned around and started to run. The dweevil brought down one of its mandibles and grabbed three blue pikmin and swallowed them.

Serbol ran alongside Louie this time, but it was no use. The Titan Dweevil was incredibly fast, even with an injured leg. The stepped over the 38 pikmin and snatched Serbol up quickly. He fought back(or tried to) and so the Dweevil threw him off. The yellow-suited pilot hit a tree and fell to the ground, out cold.

Louie turned past a tree and hid there. Maybe the Titan Dweevil was fast and strong, but not very smart… Wrong. The giant dweevil bashed the tree away and stared at Louie with a flurry of eyes. Louie wimpered in fear and his pikmin agreed. The monster roared and grabbed BLUE and three other pikmin with its mandibles. They would be dead soon, but the Nova Blaster had different ideas.

BANG!!! BANG!!! Two shots right after each other, both colliding with the Dweevil. The first hit the titan's back leg, the shock being enough that it let BLUE and the other pikmin go. The second shot hit the Dweevil head in the center of the head. The monster flung to its side by the collision and knocked another tree over. Then it just laid there…

Captain Olimar smiled. Success! He's killed the beast! He just wasn't aware that he'd saved Louie and a group of blue pikmin in the process…

Louie stared at Serbol, who was still unconscious. He stood there for a few minutes before deciding to take the high road and allow the man to live. He instructed four pikmin to carry the downed pilot.

----

Shiyo and Cehla were the first to arrive to the higher sublevel of the Hole of Heroes, sublevel 11. They and their large group of pikmin and bulbmin were moving at an excruciatingly slow speed, but it was progress nonetheless. The other pilots had arrived and laid down for a moment to rest.

Shiyo closed his eyes for a moment as he rested against the wall. Every pilot, even Cehla, was so tired he or she didn't care about searching the sublevel. That might have cost them if Shiyo didn't hear the sound of stone and dirt moving.

Shiyo jumped to his feet and made sure the pilots and their 139 soldiers were safe before walking through the only exit, or entrance, through this sublevel. He rounded a corner only to see something pale and white jump at him. Its jaws latched onto his helmet and struggled to yank his helmet off. He panicked and squirmed and somehow rolled it off. He got to his feet and kicked it three times before it stopped moving. Cehla ran to him and grabbed him by the shoulders to keep him from moving. The two pilots looked at what had attacked Shiyo; a bulborb larva. Cehla looked at it curiously. She had seen this particular creature before, in the notebooks. But, as far as her studies had told her, the larva of the bulborb species never left the side of their mother…

Her eyes widened, and Shiyo looked over the corner again. Thirty more bulborb larva were coming this way after their dead brother. Both pilots decided it was a good idea to run.

When they reached the other 23 pilots, the pikmin could already sense danger coming. They were restless and waiting for a leader. Cehla naturally called all the white pikmin to her. Shiyo called his purple troops and allowed a third pilot to take the bulbmin. They stood in a formation as the horde of now forty(and growing) bulbmin larva came squirming towards them.

Shiyo moved first, tossing a purple pikmin into the horde. The impact killed ten bulbmin larvae simply by the pounding. It was amazing how powerful purple pikmin could be at times…

Cehla moved next, tossing white pikmin out harshly and proving to be quite effective; each throw she made landed a pikmin on a bulbmin larva. WHITE found himself flying through the air and landing on one bulbmin larva, only to bounce off and knock another over.

The pilot commanding the bulbmin moved after Cehla, tossing them all. The bulbmin found no trouble attacking their half-brothers, but casualties were met on both sides. Shiyo dismissed his purple soldiers and let another responsible pilot take them while Shiyo leaped into the battle to help those bulbmin stay alive. All pilots who weren't guiding pikmin and had a decent amount of courage joined the green-suited pilot.

The horde of larva was losing the fight, but they kept coming. Finally Cehla got tired of this and called for two pilots so scan the entire sublevel, see if they couldn't find where the Empress Bulblax was and if they could escort the pikmin soldiers there safely. The two pilots ran through the legion of bulborb larva and rounded the corner. They just needed time.

Shiyo was running out of it. He was in the midst of the enemy legion, running to help any bulbmin he could see, but the larvae were starting to stack up on each other and jump at him. Whenever a larva knocked him over, the bulbmin would beat it until it died, but he couldn't do this forever.

Finally one pilot had enough; he turned around and called five purple pikmin to his side. He threw each one, PURPLE being the last, and the tremors they made as they landed shocked and kill over 42 larvae.

The two pilots returned and gave them directions. Cehla used the time they had to get the entire mass of pikmin through the cave while the new larvae were still on their way.

The Empress Bulblax lay simply in the vast cavern, quickly producing more larvae. But the pilots weren't going to let that happen. Cehla and her 23 comrades brought the now 129 pikmin and bulbmin to her majesty's head while Shiyo stayed behind to keep any and all larvae from reaching them. Shiyo spent ten seconds there and he already had his hands full, but he needed to buy Cehla and the others more time.

Cehla and two others tossed purples, whites, and bulbmin up on the Empress Bulblax's face. It didn't take long for the monster to shake them off and start rolling as a defense. Cehla and the pilots called their troops back before any of them could get crushed.

In the back, Shiyo took advantage of the break and pushed any larva he could find into the Empress's path. They were crushed and died instantly. Shiyo smiled as the enemy died via their mother, although it was a bit harsh…

The monster stopped rolling. Cehla tossed more white pikmin and the others tossed purples and bulbmin again. The Empress did something different this time; it roared loudly. Usually this wasn't a problem, but much like the Emperor Bulblax, the Empress could roar loudly enough to terrify all pikmin nearby. As it started to roar, WHITE, PURPLE, and all their pikmin brothers and sisters, bulbmin included, forgot about their pilots and just ran in terror. Cehla and the others didn't realize what was happening until it was too late.

Shiyo looked over and could see pikmin running frantically, and saw that the Empress was already starting to roll over as an offense this time. Shiyo moved quickly and ran into the line of fire and blew his whistle. PURPLE and a few others that were in danger heard his call and ran to him and out of danger. Those who didn't were crushed…

Cehla finally called the last of the surviving pikmin to her. They had lost ten soldiers to that incident. Now they counted 119. She grew angrier still and tossed all the purple pikmin she had under her control onto the beast. The others followed her example. This time, the Empress would suffer much more.

In the back, Shiyo had seven pikmin; two white, two bulbmin, and three purple soldiers. PURPLE was one of them. He kept them useful, swarming and defeating larvae before they even knew there were pikmin nearby. Pretty soon there were only three left! This was simple!

The Empress roared as loudly as she could, but this time the pilots were ready. Their whistles were already echoing even as the monster was finished roaring. All pikmin were well under control and knew what they were doing.

Shiyo finished off two larvae quickly and there was one final creature. He noticed the Empress was rolling again. He jumped and kicked the larva in the face and let it fall into the line of fire. Within seconds, it was crushed.

When the monster stopped rolling, it never had a chance to give birth to another larva. Cehla and the others tossed all their pikmin and her majesty roared one last time before falling over to her side and dying…

Shiyo watched it happen and fell over, more than happy to rest. The other pilots did the same. They were exhausted… Cehla eventually found the strength to search her logs and find out where the next gyser was. They were on sublevel 11, the gyser was on sublevel 8. If this next one was actually working, then they could finally get out of the ground and see sunlight again!!

----

The day wasn't even half over, so Olimar continued his search. Not too far away, Shacho flew at the same speed, observing the ground from the cockpit as carefully as he could. They had flown over the Forest of Hope, the Valley of Repose, the Withered Vale, the Distant Spring, even the Forest Navel, yet there was no sign of them. Olimar would search the Wistful Wild by foot before he decided to call off the search. He turned in that direction.

Louie and the blue soldiers carried Serbol to the Wistful Wild. They found shelter there and waited for him to wake up. Louie wasn't sure how they would get the Green Onion over here, but if Serbol had done it once, they he could do it again. All they needed now was time. But with the S.S. Dolphin and the Golden Ship flying way over them with three Onions following, it didn't look like he'd get very much of it at all…

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**Spring Break is over for me now, and now I'm back to work, but before schoolwork swarms me again, I figured I could finish this if I tried. Let me know if you liked it!**


	16. 90

**Jeez, it's been a while. But finals are already here! But never mind, that's not what you're here to read about.**

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The Blue Onion had been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for some time now, after having been washed away from the Distant Spring by the most recent earthquake. The current and colliding fish caught along it brushed against the blue onion until it too had to submit to the powerful waters. Now it had traveled north, very close to the Final Trial. Only, now that section of the world had become the Wistful Wild. The Blue Onion had spent enough time underwater and underneath the sand that it had gone dormant, even with all the blue pikmin still inside. But the blue onion had entered hibernation, and the pikmin could, too. Now the brown object could hardly be distinguished, let alone recognized. It would be almost impossible to find…

Louie and an awakening Serbol were the first ones to enter the Wistful Wild's general area. Louie decided to separate the green and blue pikmin, and kept the blue ones with him. Serbol had betrayed Louie back in the forest, and now Louie trusted his own blue pikmin much more than the green ones his ''ally" had discovered. Still, pikmin were loyal to whoever guided them. To Olimar's eyes, Louie was evil. That didn't mean the blue pikmin would hesitate to follow either them. That was probably what endangered the pikmin so much; they could be easily turned, and were usually just pawns in a power play. Now, it seemed that this game would lead Louie and Serbol to face Captain Olimar and President Shacho. And the former team had a very small amount of pikmin and no Onions! Captain Olimar had 3!

The said Captain had just landed on the far side of the Wistful Wild. This place had gotten bigger in the few days he'd been gone, and the earthquakes had only made the place more unstable. Last time he'd been here, the Gatling Groinks, Cannon Beetles, Chrysanthemums, and even Crawmads had dwelled here, not to mention the multitude of monsters that lived below this very ground in the sublevels; the Titan Dweevil itself had lived here!

But it didn't matter now. This was the last world Olimar could search for Louie and Serbol until he called it a failed mission. If Louie and Serbol weren't here, they were deep in the world that Olimar didn't exactly want to explore right now, even with three Onions.

But right now he only had one. He and Shacho had communicated that tricking the Onions was the only way to be a major power here. All they had to do was separate the onions and withdraw as many pikmin as possible. If they did that, the Onions may not realize that there were more than 100 pikmin outside in the battlefield at one time, and Olimar could lead as many as 300 pikmin! But this was a theory. It might not even be possible.

But it was worth a shot. Olimar exited the S.S. Dolphin and summoned 100 red pikmin from the one onion he had with him. RED and 99 others poured out to follow his every command. He alerted Shacho via radio contact, and then prayed.

On the other side of the Wistful Wild, or rather, more to the eastern side(Olimar was at the north and Louie and Serbol on the south), Shacho called out 100 yellow pikmin from the onion. Amazingly, it worked! The onions were too far apart to 'see' that other pikmin were in the field, and 100 pikmin slid out of the Onion, YELLOW included.

Both he and Olimar rejoiced! It had worked! All they had to do now was move the White Onion to another location and work from there. Now they could be more powerful that Olimar had ever hoped to be!

Sublevel 10.

Cehla was first to enter the rather empty sublevel, followed by Shiyo, the remaining pilots, and the horde of white and purple pikmin and bulbmin. The sandy ground was relatively smooth, with some mounds in different areas. On the other side of the cave was a beach, which showed that half the sublevel was covered by water.

But they just wanted to get by; they didn't want to fight any more creatures. They'd had enough. Sadly, though, 129 soldiers and 23 pilots were sort of hard to miss for watchful eyes.

One of the 23 pilots Shiyo hadn't cared much to get to know led the way this time. Shiyo and Cehla walked side-by-side, getting a strange feeling that they were being watched, or that they were walking right into danger. They were right.

What appeared as a pair of plants sticking out of the sand ended up blinking just before the leading pilot walked between them, but he noticed this too late. The eyes blinked one last time, and the creature they belonged to shot out of the sand. The Emperor Bulblax barely hesitated, slashing its tongue forward. It missed Shiyo by and inch and Cehla by even less, but it engulfed the lead pilot. They'd just lost a leader.

Shiyo was the least startled by the loss and moved quickly, blowing his whistle loudly for all nearby pikmin. A group of mostly purples and bulbmin ended up behind him, PURPLE included. Shiyo began to toss them all onto the bulblax's face, but ended up missing a few too many times and not doing enough damage. Shiyo ran backwards as the monster's tongue lashed out yet again.

Serbol had awakened. His first instinct was to keep still, find out where he was, and decide whether to run or attack. But then he spotted his horde of Green pikmin and, on his opposite side, Louie sitting on a tree trunk with his small number of blue pikmin perched next to him.

Feeling less endangered, he allowed himself to roll over and get up. His back ached and he instantly started coughing, and for a moment he thought he'd die because of it. But it only lasted a few seconds. Louie turned an angry eye in Serbol's direction, and got his attention. Once they'd made eye contact, Louie tossed Serbol's little remote device at him. Serbol barely caught it, and Louie slid off the tree trunk, giving Serbol another cold stare.

Serbol knew exactly why he was getting an angry eye, but he shrugged it off; Louie wasn't important. He could live without him. Besides, what were 15 blue pikmin going to do against a horde of greens? He laughed and started calibrating his gadget, preparing to call the Green Onion to the Wistful Wild.

Louie walked through the desolate southern parts of the Wistful Wild, leaves falling from trees to tall to even see, and yet there was not a single creature in sight. Louie recalled his time alone here… How he'd ended up in the Dream Den and with that Titan Dweevil… This place had been the site of his last adventure… What would happen this time around?

Olimar and Shacho had tricked the Onion's systems and now had 300 pikmin following their lead, 100 red, 100 yellow, and 100 white. Now they were hardly into the Wistful Wild's area and they were the most powerful group that had ever become! What could stop them now?

Louie appeared around the corner, and instantly flattened himself against the tree trunk nearby. The blue pikmin were not nearly as stealthy, but they were out of sight. Had Louie really just seen what he thought he'd seen? He looked around the trunk slowly… Yes! He had! 300 pikmin! And worse, Olimar was here! Shacho was not the most skilled of pikmin leaders, but Captain Olimar had been here since day one! He created day one! What chance did he, with 15 blue pikmin, stand?

BLUE felt the presence of many pikmin and began to get restless, but his master was silent, so he would stay quiet. On the other side, RED felt the same tingle, only it was the sense of a fellow species, not yellow or white. RED looked around curiously, but soon found himself straying behind the group, so he rushed to keep up. Within seconds, the strange pikmin encounter had ended.

Serbol had succeeded in drawing the Green Onion nearby, but had done so that the Onion was outside the Wistful Wild's borders. He, too, now had 100 green pikmin to use as his own power. There were now 415 pikmin in the field, but an Onion would only be able to sense the 15. It was a strange concept, but it was absolutely working!

Shacho rounded a tree trunk, and suddenly froze. In front of him was a creature he'd never expected to see every again. There, in a giant heap of white meat, sat a smiley and hungry Raging Bloyster. Shacho had two split seconds to react before the monster's tentacles shot out to eat them all, but it was enough to move all the pikmin back three steps, just enough to save them from an instant death. The Raging Bloyster groaned in a hungry and angry way, and Olimar took half the pikmin force and began to circle around the beast. This battle would be a quick one.

Underground, the same could not be said. Shiyo heard the Emperor Bulblax roar like it had never roared before, and all the pikmin in the sublevel began to run aimlessly, insane and terrified. Cehla actually fell back from the roar's impact. It took the pilots a bit longer than they'd hoped to retrieve every last soldier, but it had to be enough. Now they were separated, but it seemed to be an advantage, as the Bulblax had no idea which swarm of pikmin and bulbmin to go after first.

Cehla decided to choose for it. She jumped forward and tossed all her pikmin onto the monster's head, WHITE included. WHITE landed a bit higher than the others and found himself hanging on to the monster's raised eye. The Bulblax jumped and smashed down to the ground, knocking all the pikmin off but WHITE. Shiyo got the idea and leaped forward next, tossing all his pikmin, except for PURPLE. The same process occurred, but now all the pilots were doing the same.

The Bulblax roared, but PURPLE shut him up by landing just above its upper lip and stunning it. The monster fell over, dizzy and confused, and the remaining pikmin swarmed. Within seconds, the monster had died.

Shiyo brushed himself off and helped Cehla up. The rest of the pilots and pikmin were getting on their feet after a surprisingly quick battle. But they weren't complaining! They quickly continued the climb to sublevel 9.

Olimar and Shacho finished off the Raging Bloyster by quick and pinpoint tosses and teamwork. The monster fell over and dissolved, leaving nothing but its plant-like tail. The two pilots shared a moment of victory and then continued their journey as if nothing had happened.

Louie had placed his blue pikmin back in Serbol's care while he decided to go follow Captain Olimar and Shacho to wherever they were going. He leaped over a large tree trunk and hid beneath a shoot plant, having barely spotted the swarm of white pikmin following Shacho. Louie stepped past the planet slowly, ever so slightly, and then stepped on a twig. Or rather, a dweevil's leg. But it wasn't just a dweevil, it was a Volatile Dweevil.

There was not hesitation, no countdown, nothing. The bug just exploded. Louie flew backwards and over the natural bridge of dirt and into the water. His antenna light went out and he felt just as extinguished. He was out cold.

Serbol glanced at the pikmin power he had with him and decided that now was a good time to set up a camp of some sort. He chose for the green pikmin to start building a moat around the Green Onion, and with plenty of extra room to walk around, while the few blue pikmin he had went with him to find a river.

Olimar stepped forward a bit too soon. He had awakened a flurry of Shearwigs and Sheargrubs. The ambush of purple and green slugs surprised the Captain and his army of 100 red and 50 white pikmin. While 150 soldiers and a veteran pilot could easily take down a flurry of ten slugs, it was still an unexpected surprise. But what happened next, even more so:

Food was still scarce around here, and every monster took food when available. So, when ten Shearwigs and Sheargrubs showed themselves, every creature came out to munch on them, and pikmin were a bonus!

Two Cloaking Burrow-nits popped out of the ground and began snagging Sheargrubs. A Decorated Cannon Beetle began firing boulders from the hill it stood on. A Spotty Bulbear appeared from behind and snagged the Cannon Beetle in its mouth. The Dwarf Bulbears charged down to eat the other Sheargrubs and even challenge the Burrow-nits. Swooping Snichbugs were drawn to the scene and charged at pikmin, Olimar's clever guidance being the only thing saving the pikmin troops from being abducted.

Now for more. Red Bulborbs were attracted to the scene and a Fiery Blowhog appeared to snag a Shearwig. The Shearwigs flew into the air only to land back down in the disguised flower form of a Creeping Chrysanthemum. Two Wollywogs jumped into the fray and challenged the Fiery Blowhug and then the Bulborbs.

One Wollywog was eaten by a Red Bulborb. The other was thrown off its feet by the sudden appearance of a Gatling Groink. The Spotty Bulbear and Gatling Groink began a duel while the Dwarf Bulbears trembled at the jaws of the Creeping Chrysanthemum. The Red Bulborb that was still alive moved to take a bite of the sole remaining Burrow-nit. All the Sheargrubs and Shearwigs died.

Olimar tossed RED at a Swooping snichbug and the rest of the pikmin swarmed it. A bumbling snichbug appeared out of nowhere and snatched Olimar and tossed him into the chaos. The Captain commanded his pikmin stay away from the food-chain insanity.

A Burrowing Snagret appeared out of the midst, snatching the last remaining Dwarf Bulbear. Behind it, the Gatling Groink had defeated the Spotty Bulbear but had broken its faceplate. The burrowing Snagret lunged forward and cut into the Gatling Groink's hull, shattering it beyond repair. The explosion burned many of the Snagret's feathers.

Olimar got back to his pikmin. Out of the far side of the battle, a Water Wraith, the same one that had steamrolled over Shiyo and PURPLE during the beginning of their adventure, had appeared and wished to join the battle. Somehow, a Red Bulborb managed to destroy one of its rollers, and now it wandered aimlessly through the battle.

Shacho rounded the corner, saw the battle, and ran the other way. Olimar decided it was time to go, too. They left the nature to its battle…

Louie woke up, dizzy, aching, and confused. He rested on a submerged rock as he tried to wake himself up. The coldness of the water he was in did a good job, but the rock he was leaning on did a better job still. It turned to a lively blue color and sprouted a flower on its roof, and then shot up into the air, sprouted three legs, and landed calmly. Louie stared at it blankly and then a smile crossed his face! He'd found the Blue Onion!

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**Not a great ending, but whatever. I've got very few chapters left to write! Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading.**


	17. Finale

**Hopefully I published this before I leave for my vacation! May the finale begin.**

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Sublevel 9: Previously covered in Bulborbs of almost all species.

Not anymore, though. Now the bodies of all the creatures that had died here were being taken by breadbugs, but burrowing snagrets had taken a liking to them instead. Snagrets and Cannon Beetles fought for resources and the battles ended up being extremely chaotic. That was the sublevel Shiyo, Cehla, the pilots and their horde of Pikmin had walked into.

Louie brushed the blue Onion smoothly. Contrary to Olimar's first encounter with this onion, the blue onion already had pikmin stored inside, which Louie had left behind before and now had access to. He checked the number of pikmin inside: 219. Wow!

Olimar and Shacho left the enourmous wildlife battle behind them as they walked into a mound of dirt that had obviously been placed there recently. At first they thought it was a monster of some sort, but Captain Olimar spotted pikmin tracks…

Serbol's troops were responcible. They were building a sort of trench in the ground on Serbol's command, and the remaining blue pikmin he had with him were working on a special job. Serbol was watching the work proudly, until a motion tracker in his suit went off. He spun around to see Olimar and Shacho arrive and stare down into the trench. Even though they were a good yard apart(Which is a lot for people their size) they stared right into each other's eyes with a feeling of longing to meet, and yet also rivalry. All three of them knew that this was what they had been headed towards…

Serbol had a full army of Green pikmin, GREEN included. The blue eyed green soldier turned to see his master Serbol staring at two other similar beings, both followed by huge numbers of different color pikmin. Olimar and Shacho had RED, YELLOW, their color armies, and whites behind them. This battle had been counted on for a long long time… finally, the stare contest ended.

Serbol called for all of the Green pikmin working to stop and return to him. This trench was done. The time for battle had come. He called his 100 troops to his side and smirked. Captain Olimar and President Shacho smiled in return, in a proud and confident way. As Serbol whistled for an attack, Olimar and Shacho called for a charge. The battle had begun.

For Shiyo and Cehla, the battle was happening around them and they were just the reward. They had to get across the sublevel, but that involved crossing the sea of Cannon Beetles and Snagrets. Instantly after they entered, two Cannon Beetle Larvae took interest to them and attempted to flatten them. Shiyo took his Purple pikmin while Cehla and the pilots took the Bulbmin and whites.

They entered the sea of chaos and were strangely thankful for it. As the larvae attacked them, A burrowing Snagret appeared from the ground and attacked the larvae so to keep the pikmin for itself. After it finished, it reached down to snatch over twenty pikmin, but it never got the chance. A boulder rolled out of nowhere and hit the snagret in the face. A decorated Cannon Beetle was responsible. Another snagret attacked in for being a problem and Shiyo found himself deciding to run beneath an angry Pileated Snagret. Turns out that kept him and his troops safe, as it was too occupied with the Armored Cannon Beetles nearby to take notice of them.

Cehla took her group of White Pikmin around a Burrowing Snagret as it unknowingly fended them from an attacking Armored Cannon Beetle. As those two fought, Cehla ran underneath another Armored Cannon Beetle, and it kept them safe from a Burrowing Snagret attempted to snack at them. Those two giant monsters began a fight and Cehla made another leap for the exit.

WHITE's pilot had suddenly been crushed by a Decorated Cannon Beetle's boulder, and he, with the other white pikmin and some Bulbmin, now sat leaderless in the middle of the entire mess. Shiyo ran past them and called them, barely saving them from being eaten, but it probably wouldn't last forever.

Three armies against one definitely meant victory for the former. Captain Olimar was leading an incredible strategic move against Serbol's 100 troops, while President Shacho kept the green pikmin under stress at all times. It didn't take long for Serbol to realize he was going to lose. He called the surviving 37 green pikmin he had left to follow him as he ran up the trench. Olimar and shacho called their 256 pikmin to follow.

Serbol ran faster, and he reached his destination quickly. There, the remaining 14 blue pikmin Louie'd left behind were digging the upper section of the trench, but for a specific reason. Serbol commanded his green soldiers to get out of the trench and then ran and pulled out his gadget again. He pulled out what appeared to be a flare gun and pulled the trigger. As he'd hoped, a Gatling Groink was the only creature who'd heard the high-pitched screech and came to investigate.

Olimar and Shacho, still in the trench with them pikmin, watched the flare and stared as a Gatling Groink appeared and aimed its cannon at Serbol. This appeared to be a victory, as the explosion would kill Serbol and the 14 blue pikmin nearby. But instead, Serbol dove out of the way, onto the solid ground.

BLUE was there, working on the bridge, and had been for some time. He looked up to see a Galting Groink firing at them and his leader leaving them. His last thought was one of confusion. Why did Serbol leave them? BANG!

Serbol smiled as the blue pikmin all died. He sacrificed them, but worse, the trench they'd been digging to open finally collapsed, just as Serbol had planned. Behind the trench, a river waited to flow. It splashed straight into the Galting Groink and then towards Olimar, Shacho, and their pikmin.

Olimar's eyes widened as his first move was to move all pikmin out of the trench. All 256 pikmin of yellow, white, and red pikmin ran as fast as they could. Shacho followed them with his division of their horde, just as the water and Gatling Groink flowed at full speed behind them.

YELLOW and most of his color army made it out first, followed by most of the reds. The whites had a good number of their army get out, too. But Olimar was at the back of the horde, and he, with RED and a few other pikmin from each color army, where washed away. Shacho watched in horror as a small bite of their army was taken away and Olimar, too, was washed away in an instantly. His shock and thoughts of loss switched to hatred and anger in a heartbeat as he turned to stare at Serbol, who was standing there summoning more pikmin from the Green Onion. Shacho stood up and called the horde of pikmin. This would end now. He charged.

Olimar tumbled through the water, the ice cold feeling numbing him and the impact from the water nearly knocking him out. The water was washing across the Wistful Wild violently and quickly, and he was sure that most of the pikmin that had washed along with him had likely drowned or died from the impact of the water or the rocks they were sliding past. At the end, the water flowed to the Dream Den and began to drain down there. The Gatling Groink's body rolled down the river and then was engulfed by the hole, likely to crash down at the bottom, the very, very bottom. Olimar strained and his arms flailed for something to grab onto, until he managed to grab onto a plant root of some kind just before the newly created waterfall threw him back into the Dream Den, a place he never wanted to visit again!

He spotted a pikmin flowing down the river and he reached to grab its stem. It was a red pikmin. The pikmin was dazed but awake enough to realize that its master had just saved it from falling down a dark hole. The pikmin got the idea and grabbed the next pikmin it saw, a random yellow. The two swung back and forth, collecting three more pikmin, two whites and another red, until they formed a chain of five.

The red at the bottom of the chain was RED himself, who had been the last surviving pikmin not to die or fall down the hole. Their leader was straining to keep hold of them now. Olimar's grip on the plant root was slipping and his family's voices screaming for him to keep holding on wasn't helping either.

RED began to sway back and forth, and his four pikmin brothers realized what he had in mind. The other side of the hole was within their reach, if they could reach it. Olimar took notice and tried to assist as best he could, because he wouldn't be able to hold on for much longer…

RED got enough momentum and made a reach for it. He grabbed the edge of the rocks and got a sturdy grip! As he managed to grab on, Olimar's hold on the pikmin slipped. The five pikmin were now hanging on the opposite of the hole, free from the water, and they slowly climbed up. All five of them were safe, but Olimar, hanging on to a weak plant root and water rushing up against his face and pushing him into a dark hole, was the farthest thing from safe.

There was no way RED or the other four could save him. But out of nowhere a pikmin's arm came from the water and grabbed Olimar's wrists and pulled him from the root, out of the water, and onto dry land. After Olimar managed to catch his breath and wash his helmet off, he saw that the pikmin group responsible for saving him was blue. A chain of five blue pikmin led by Louie, and 95 more blue pikmin behind him. Louie outstretched his hand, motioning for Olimar to take it. Olimar and Louie clasped hands and the latter pulled his old partner up, off the ground. RED and the other five pikmin rejoiced. Louie and Olimar met eyes, and, for the first time in a long time, it was that look of a team.

Shiyo and Cehla met and clasped arms in the same way, but this way to keep each other out of danger. WHITE and PURPLE were among the many pikmin avoiding death, but finally they made it to the other side of the sublevel. They began to climb, more than eager to get out of this chaos. The next level was their salvation!

Shacho was losing. Although he had more pikmin, Serbol would simply summon more pikmin from the onion every time he lost some. Shacho knew he would run out eventually. They both would, but Shacho was nowhere near his onions.

Serbol walked through the pikmin battle and found Shacho, and punched him in the helmet. Shacho fell to the floor hard. Serbol picked up and threw him across the pikmin war, only to grab him by the antenna and pull him back. The antenna broke off and Shacho was already looking beat up. He kicked kneed in the crotch and then in the chest, and then was whacked one last time in the back of the head. Serbol was smiling the entire time, almost happy to be beating up this annoying president of a Hocotate mail system.

He took the President and rolled him across the field and then by the newly created river. He grabbed him by the collar and threw him against the ground, Shacho's head inches from the river. Serbol glared at him and then readied to throw him in. Exactly a moment before he did, a random blue pikmin slammed against him. Serbol fell back and Shacho fell coughing. Serbol looked up to see Olimar and Louie standing side by side, a horde of blue pikmin behind them(with an extra five of white, yellow and red). The battle would continue.

Out of the Hole of Heroes shot Shiyo, Cehla, and their pilots and pikmin. They made it! They surfaced! Shiyo and the others just had to celebrate! But they could see the pikmin battle upstream… What did they miss?

Not enough, but they joined the fight. They saw their leader, Serbol, against three other pilots, one of them Captain Olimar. Which side did they chose?

Olimar found Shacho and helped him up. The president had taken a beating and his antenna was gone. But then, Louie had been through worse and he was still in action, so the president would be alright. The more pressing matter right now was what to do with the neverending horde of green pikmin.

Serbol had one last trick up his sleeve. His gadget had one last flare, and it had fired. Like green pikmin, it contained a specific chemical that another species of wildlife here was immune to. But Puffstool creatures were not just immune to toxic gas, but they released it.

A puffstool soon arrived, and spotted pikmin to corrupt.

While a puffstool provided a minor annoyance, the flare had once last unintended side effect. It alerted one last creature, one Louie and Shacho had both met up close before. The Titan Dweevil.

How the heck was that thing still alive? Its face was scarred and one of its legs was ridiculously hurt and yet it was still alive, roaring, and charging!

Olimar was first to spot and have his jaw drop. He recognized it from the blasts he'd taken! How was that thing alive? Louie saw it second and almost turned to run, but he decided against it.

Cehla was speaking to Olimar and Shiyo to Serbol, and they had to decide right there. The other pilots all wanted to follow Serbol, but Cehla and Shiyo felt no such desire in mining this beautiful planet. As soon as they realize they wouldn't come to an agreement, everyone reached instantly for their whistles. Pikmin who they believe were on everyone's side were called to random pilots, and their own civil war broke out.

The Titan Dweevil arrived and slipped on its broken leg, slamming into the ground and knocking Shiyo off his feet and almost into the river. Only a quick act from Olimar saved him from going for a swing. The Puffstool was terrified and released a cloud of poisonous gas, which only green pikmin and white pikmin were immune to. A minor number of purple, red, yellow and blue pikmin and bulbmin all became malformed muchroom pikmin and served only the puffstool.

The battle became a war of four sides:

Serbol and all the other pilots.

Olimar, Louie, Shacho, Cehla, and Shiyo.

Puffstool and its mutated pikmin.

Titan Dweevil.

The battle raged. The Titan Dweevil took a violent turn towards the Puffstool, knocking it over. The mushroom pikmin, unorganized, simply attacked any soldier they could. Shacho was knocked over and assaulted by a poisoned muchroom pikmin and only saved by YELLOW.

WHITE moved through the poisonous gas and assaulted the Puffstool as it got back up. The giant mushroom took a wrong turn and slipped into the river. WHITE barely managed to jump off in time as the giant fungus was taken away by the water. Now all that remained of its influence were the poisoned pikmin, now severely losing the fight.

The Titan Dweevil moved angrily on the ground and crushed many pikmin all at once. Shiyo commanded the bulbmin to jump onto its face, and it slipped again and fell forward, crushing PURPLE. The poor pikmin had not chance of surviving.

Louie and Serbol came to blows. The former was feeling betrayed and had finally decided, in the heat of it all, to save Olimar from the river and return to the light. While Louie wasn't too happy about having to go back to Hocotate, Serbol was a much more evil person and had to be taken down.  
Olimar leaped onto the Titan Dweevil with RED and began trying to stress it more than usual. It was working. The Titan Dweevil was roaring at and intense level and doing everything possible to be deadly. Olimar was knocked off and nearly cracked his helmet open.

Finally, the Captain decided to end this creature once and for all. He reached for his suit systems and called for the S.S. Dolphin's remote contact. The Nova Blaster had one last task to complete.

Shiyo and Cehla fought the pilots they'd been fighting alongside for some time now with disgust. How could they turn their backs on this planet? Serbol wanted to take this planet and mine it for riches, and then industrialize all for power! This world did not belong in the machine age! It belonged where it was, free of the attacks and stress of other worlds!

Shiyo kicked a pilot in the chest and then moved on. He called WHITE to his side and tossed it into the fray. This brawl was simply too much chaos. The leader had to be taken down.

Louie seemed to be doing a pretty good job of that. He grabbed Serbol by the helmet and rammed it into the ground, only to bring it back and punch him in the gut several times. He spun him around and kicked him in the back, forcing Serbol on the ground. Three blue pikmin jumped on him and began beating him. Serbol threw them off and tackled Louie. Both rolled across the battle and Serbol ended up gaining the upper hand, pinning Louie to the ground and punching him in the face.

Olimar made some last calculations and then backed away, telling Shacho, Shiyo, and Cehla to do the same. All of them heard the characteristic roars of the S.S. Dolphin's engines and it was rocketing towards them at an intense speed. Soon enough they spotted it. Inside the cockpit, the targeting computer had taken aim and both the Nova Blaster and Guard Satellite had taken action. The Titan Dweevil was in their sights. The Guard Satellite fired tiny rounds of bullets that dug into the Titan Dweevil's legs while the Nova Blaster charged an extremely hot and powerful burst. It fired and missed. The Dolphin came around for another pass.

Louie had had enough. He lifted his leg and kicked Serbol in the crotch. Serbol, needless to say, found himself very weak, and Louie took his chance. He leaped up and threw Serbol to the ground.

BANG! The Dolphin came around for another shot and hit head on, literally, scarring and burning the Titan Dweevil's face. The monster roared as it fell over to its left and into the new river. As it passed over the pilots, one of its legs swiped by Louie and Serbol, knocking them both unconscious.

The Dweevil fell into the river and was washed away. It followed the entire current and fell into the Dream Den, where it had first been seen.

The remaining pilots surrendered as soon as Serbol and his green pikmin were defeated. Serbol's unconscious body lay on the ground, covered in dirt, as did Louie's. Shiyo and Cehla commanded the entire fray of victorious pikmin to create a circle around the pilots.

Olimar lifted Louie and carried him into the Golden Ship, putting him in the passenger's seat. Serbol was placed inside the Golden Ship's Storage. Shacho decided to take care of him from here on out.

It was decided. Shacho would fly back to Hocotate, deliver Serbol to authority and allow his fate to be decided and then bring a shuttle back here to come back for the other fifteen pilots, Shiyo and Cehla. The pilots had not commited any extreme acts, and if Serbol's trail wouldn't be too horrid, neither would theirs. Captain Olimar chose to fly with Shacho back to Hocotate, to see his family again and take care of Louie.

Back on Hocotate, Olimar's family waited for him at the docking bay. He greeted them with more joy than ever before! He then decided to formally forgive Louie. He approached the sleepy novice pilot, and they shook hands. Louie was worried, but Olimar decided Louie's fate would not be a dark one.

Shacho took Serbol to authority. While they original movement to heading to industrialize a natural planet was not recommended, attacking and attempting to kill President Shacho and Captain Olimar, not to mention nearly getting a novice pilot Louie killed in the process, was obviously not forgivable. Serbol would be sentence to a decent amount of time in jail…

The shuttle coming to pick up the other pilots along with Shiyo and Cehla, came soon. The fifteen pilots were charge with minor offense, since they were simply following orders. Shiyo and Cehla were merely forgotten during the dispute.

Captain Olimar returned to the Distant Planet one last time for a final farewell to the pikmin. He'd had time to study the green pikmin and greet all the others all over again. Losses like BLUE and PURPLE and so many others along the way, but they had ended with a successful moment. While the terrors of the planet would never stop, the world of Pikmin would never end, either. For that final night, Olimar did as he always did. The countdown ended, and he ran to his S.S. Dolphin. He blew his whistle, and all reds, yellows, blues, whites, and green pikmin ran to their onions(purples would find shelter as they did last time somehow) and as soon as they were all safe, Olimar would take off. That characteristic roar, the liftoff, the onions lifting off with him, and then that sendoff. Captain Olimar left the Distant Planet. As a final farewell, a flurry of seven other onions, never before seen by Hocotate eyes, flew to the atmosphere to say farewell. The Purple Pikmin would definitely find an onion.

The S.S. Dolphin flew off into space, back home.

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**Too bad there's not a quote that Pikmin usually has for a happy ending. They just have Olimar flying away in a sweet way, but I can't have you listen to music or watch a beautiful cutscene…**

**That's that, then… Wow. Didn't expect to finish this chapter so fast. Thanks for ready the entire way. Hope the ending wasn't too cheesy. If you read the entire way, I salute you! Anyway, I actually didn't even tell the story I wanted! I didn't focus enough on what I wanted. But anyway… Enough of that. Thank you and happy writing!**


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